Lau, C. Maggie Kim, Sung-Soo Lillie, Leon M. Tolman, William B. Reineke, Theresa M. Ellison, Christopher J. 2024-01-19T14:33:38Z 2024-01-19T14:33:38Z 2021-09-05 2021-05-18 2161-1653 https://pubs.kist.re.kr/handle/201004/116987 Two renewable, structurally analogous monomers, isosorbide undecenoate (IU) and glucarodilactone undecenoate (GDLU) reacted with pentaerythritol tetrakis(3-mercaptopropionate) (PETT) via thiol-ene photopolymerization to form IU-PETT and GDLU-PETT thermosets. Despite their chemical similarity, uniaxial tensile testing showed that GDLU-PETT exhibited a strain-hardening behavior and is significantly tougher than IU-PETT. To understand this observation, in situ tensile testing and wide-angle X-ray scattering experiments (WAXS) were conducted. While the 2D WAXS patterns of IU-PETT displayed an isotropic halo during uniaxial deformation, they exhibited a change from an isotropic halo to a pair of scattering arcs for the GDLU-PETT samples. Density functional theory calculations further revealed that the GDLU alkyl chains are less angled than the IU alkyl chains. Based on these results, we postulate that the GDLU molecules can more easily order and align during uniaxial deformation, hence increasing intermolecular interactions between the GDLU molecules and contributing to the observed strain hardening behavior of their thermosets. This study exemplifies how molecules with subtle differences in their chemical structures can alter the structures and thermophysical properties of the resulting polymers in unpredictable ways. English AMER CHEMICAL SOC STRAIN-INDUCED CRYSTALLIZATION SYNTHETIC RUBBERS NATURAL-RUBBER REAL-TIME STRESS DEFORMATION FIBERS Structural Basis for the Different Mechanical Behaviors of Two Chemically Analogous, Carbohydrate-Derived Thermosets Article 10.1021/acsmacrolett.1c00041 1 ACS MACRO LETTERS, v.10, no.5, pp.609 - 615 ACS MACRO LETTERS 10 5 609 615 scie scopus 000654292600016 2-s2.0-85106608115 Polymer Science Polymer Science Article STRAIN-INDUCED CRYSTALLIZATION SYNTHETIC RUBBERS NATURAL-RUBBER REAL-TIME STRESS DEFORMATION FIBERS