Influences of Crystallinity and Crosslinking Density on the Shape Recovery Force in Poly(ε-Caprolactone)-Based Shape-Memory Polymer Blends

Abstract

Shape-memory polymers (SMPs) show great potential in various emerging applications, such as artificial muscles, soft actuators, and biomedical devices, owing to their unique shape recovery-induced contraction force. However, the factors influencing this force remain unclear. Herein, we designed a simple polymer blending system using a series of tetra-branched poly(ε-caprolactone)-based SMPs with long and short branch-chain lengths that demonstrate decreased crystallinity and increased crosslinking density gradients. The resultant polymer blends possessed mechanical properties manipulable across a wide range in accordance with the crystallinity gradient, such as stretchability (50.5–1419.5%) and toughness (0.62–130.4 MJ m−3), while maintaining excellent shape-memory properties. The experimental results show that crosslinking density affected the shape recovery force, which correlates to the SMPs’ energy storage capacity. Such a polymer blending system could provide new insights on how crystallinity and crosslinking density affect macroscopic thermal and mechanical properties as well as the shape recovery force of SMP networks, improving design capability for future applications.