A Facile Strategy for the Development of Recyclable Multifunctional Liquid Crystal Polymers via Post-Polymerization Modification and Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization

Post-polymerization modification (PPM) offers a versatile approach for engineering multifunctional polymers, but this advantage has not been fully exploited to fabricate multifunctional liquid crystal polymers (LCPs). Here, we design a facile synthetic approach towards multifunctional LCP by combining the ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) with PPM, in which ROMP helps to prepare a reactive LCP precursor with high molecular weight, and PPM provides a facilitation to introduce functional groups into the precursor. Consequently, a photo- and humidity-responsive linear LCP (LLCP) is demonstrated to show the potential of this synthetic strategy to diversify functions of the LCPs. Under light irradiation and humidity changes, the deformation modes of the LLCP films are converted to complex shapes (bending, twisting, and curling). The obtained dual-responsive LLCP with high molecular weight possesses excellent processability and recyclability, making it possible to construct 3D shape actuators with programmable deformation behaviors under light/humidity.

Automated summary

This study presents a synthetic approach towards multifunctional liquid crystal polymers (LCPs) by combining ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) with post-polymerization modification (PPM). The obtained photo- and humidity-responsive LCP exhibits complex deformation behaviors and possesses excellent processability and recyclability, showing great potential for the fabrication of programmable shape actuators.