Vitrimers, a new class of organic materials

Watching the glassblower, we realize just how special his material is, worked with a flame, without temperature control and without a mold: amorphous silica, the archetypal glass, passes from a liquid to a solid state very gradually. By contrast, all organic compounds, without exception, exhibit a viscosity in the vicinity of the glass transition that decreases sharply with temperature. What's more, silica is insoluble. Is it possible to design an organic material that behaves like amorphous silica? We imagined a glass transition by freezing the topology of a molecular network and introduced vitrimers, molecular networks capable of reorganizing themselves through exchange reactions without changing the number of bonds. Vitrimers constitute a new class of polymeric materials: they are insoluble like thermosetting resins or rubber, but malleable under heat like thermoplastics. These exceptional properties in the world of materials seem to offer numerous industrial prospects in sectors as diverse as electronics, automobiles, construction or aeronautics... all the more so as new exchange reactions make it possible to use ingredients and processing methods widely present in these industries.

Biography

Ludwik Leibler, a member of the Académie des Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in the USA, is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Distinguished Professor at the École de Physique et Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris. He heads the Matière Molle et Chimie laboratory (ESPCI/CNRS).