Dual-Responsive Shape Memory and Thermally Reconfigurable Reduced Graphene Oxide-Vitrimer Composites

In this paper, we have prepared shape memory reduced graphene oxide-vitrimer composites via in situ reduction of graphene oxide (GO) during the curing reaction. Because of good compatibility between GO and epoxy resin, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has a good dispersion in the epoxy matrix. Conventional thermoset shape memory polymers can only maintain one permanent shape, while these obtained composites can be randomly reconfigured into other shapes via dynamic covalent transesterification reaction at 200 degrees C above transesterification temperature (T-V). They can recover quickly from fixed shapes to their initial shapes with shape fixity ratio higher than 95% and shape recovery ratio higher than 97%. Besides, the rGO-vitrimers show good mechanical properties and thermal stabilities. In addition, sequent near-infrared (NIR) irradiation can control the shape recovery, because rGO can serve as an energy convertor to convert NIR irradiation into thermal energy.