Everyone has beco quite adept at collaborating, and this project has entered the optimization phase, making it easier to understand.
Simply put, Liu Hao and the team chose to use poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) as the temperature-responsive polyr, modifying polyethylene glycol to achieve temperature sensitivity.
Then, using molecular monors containing Diels-Alder reactions, dynamic covalent bond monors are ford to realize mory functions.
The synthesis thod involves mixing responsive monors with a cross-linking agent to form a gel through free radical polyrization.
The cross-linking reaction is carried out in solution, forming a uniform gel network. Finally, the gel’s network structure is achieved through hydrogen bonds and π-π stacking.
Currently, the best result in the laboratory is achieving more than 70% fracture strength recovery, with self-healing efficiency reaching over 75%.
However, the client requires at least 90% fracture strength recovery and over 95% self-healing efficiency to et their paraters.
It’s said that over at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they’ve achieved over 95% self-healing efficiency by introducing dual-network dynamic bonds, with material fracture strength recovery reaching 92%.
The University of California, Los Angeles, has also used thermally responsive polyrs to achieve materials with fracture strength recovery exceeding 90%.
The current issue is that those solutions have low applicability and high costs, especially the design costs of dynamic chemical bonds, which are too expensive for large-scale industrialization.
That’s why Liu Hao’s ntor is taking on this project, aiming to make so breakthroughs, particularly in the aerospace sector, which has high demand for such materials.
They are used for outer coatings, capable of detecting and repairing microcracks, with self-healing ability extending the material’s lifespan in harsh space environnts.
Additionally, temperature responsiveness can protect equipnt operating under extre temperature conditions.
Moreover, for manufacturing energy storage battery electrode materials, they can not only adjust or repair structures based on temperature changes during charging and discharging but also extend battery life and prevent safety incidents caused by thermal runaway.
Of course, such smart materials have many other applications, but according to Senior Brother Zhang’s guidance, if they can successfully develop them, the primary focus for the client will surely be designing products specifically for these two directions.
Moreover, many research institutes in the country are working on breakthroughs in this field, but this research group and the Huairou Institute are currently leading in this area dostically.
Of course, there are differences. For example, this project is quite large, and it involves more than just today’s team mbers; there are two other laboratories also doing so auxiliary work.
However, just like that day, after understanding the specific laboratory thods, Qiao Yu checked the literature and laboratory data in the office and found that the problem this ti was indeed quite tricky.
The main issue is that the entire laboratory environnt is a dynamic reaction network, and the parater dinsions are indeed too nurous.
Ti, solution concentration, molecular interactions... there are too many factors that can affect the outco.
What is most perplexing is the vast and chaotic data they collected. Although there are relatively mature thods, even slight changes can significantly alter paraters or severely degrade the performance of the self-healing materials, among other issues...
Looking at the ssy laboratory data, Qiao Yu was both awed and understood that currently, new material developnt is essentially a large-scale trial and error experint.
Generally, they know roughly what is needed and have so direction on how to achieve it, but many details can only be worked out through continuous trial and error, such as the concentration of the fusion agent, gel cross-linking reaction ti, and the ratio of regulating monors to cross-linking agents...
And so on, requiring repeated trial and error at each step until a relatively satisfactory result is obtained.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with this thod. After all, everyone employs this approach.
It wouldn’t be an issue if the results were linear each ti; as long as they could gradually approach the ideal outco, everyone would see hope and work with full motivation.
But the problem is that the results from each experint appear non-linear. Simply put, sotis the results initially look quite good, and then a slight adjustnt makes them worse.
Another slight adjustnt makes it even worse, until occasionally, a better result erges from the laboratory samples...
After reviewing the laboratory records, Qiao Yu roughly understood why Professor Lu said they should conduct more experints. The pattern is too elusive.
Running simulations with these results would exhaust the supercomputer, likely without much effect.
Ultimately, supercomputer simulations require collecting enough data to obtain so reliable possibilities without actual experints.
Without sufficient data support, it’s impossible to effectively control various paraters, making the supercomputer run blindly is purely a waste of computing power.
After reading the laboratory records and so literature, Qiao Yu turned to look at Brother Liu, who had been by his side, looking at him expectantly.
He seriously asked, "Brother Liu, I’m not doubting your professionalism, just wondering, if by so fluke you got a good result in the lab, and then there was a mistake in the lab records, would you go crazy?"
Liu Hao was stunned for a mont, then showed a complex expression, and pointed firmly at the window next to him, saying resolutely, "Go crazy? Let tell you, in such a case, wherever the mistake ca from, I’d imdiately throw the person responsible right out of that window!"
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