Shape-memory polymers can revert to their original shape when they are reheated. The stress generated by shape recovery is a growing function of the energy absorbed during deformation at a high temperature; thus, high energy to failure is a necessary condition for strong shape-memory materials. We report on the properties of composite nanotube fibers that exhibit this particular feature. We observed that these composites can generate a stress upon shape recovery up to two orders of magnitude greater than that generated by conventional polymers. In addition, the nanoparticles induce a broadening of the glass transition and a temperature memory with a peak of recovery stress at the temperature of their initial deformation.

Water-soluble macroalkoxyamines are shown to be particularly well-suited initiators for nitroxide-mediated emulsion polymerization. They lead to the synthesis of amphiphilic block copolymers that self-assemble in situ into well-defined nanoobject morphologies, in agreement with the principles of polymerization-induced micellization. Depending on the molar mass of the hydrophobic block, the formed nanoparticles are hairy spherical micelles, nanofibers, or vesicles. The nanofibers are the most intriguing and spectacular structure and strongly affect the physicochemical properties of the aqueous dispersions.

We investigate the nanostructure and the linear rheological properties of polybutylacrylate (PBA) filled with Stöber silica particles grafted with PBA chains. The silica volume fractions range from 1.8 to 4.7%. The nanostructure of these suspensions is investigated by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), and we determine their spectromechanical behavior in the linear region. SANS measurements performed on low volume fraction composites show that the grafted silica particles are spherical, slightly polydisperse, and do not form aggregates during the synthesis process. These composites thus constitute model filled polymers. The rheological results show that introducing grafted silica particles in a polymer matrix results in the appearance of a secondary process at low frequency: for the lowest volume fractions, we observe a secondary relaxation that we attribute to the diffusion of the particles in the polymeric matrix. By increasing the silica volume fraction up to a critical value, we obtain gellike behavior at low frequency as well as the appearance of a structure factor on the scattering intensity curves obtained by SANS. Further increasing the silica particle concentration leads to composites exhibiting solidlike low-frequency behavior and to an enhanced structure peak on the SANS diagrams. This quantitative correlation between the progressive appearance of a solidlike rheological behavior, on one hand, and a structure factor, on the other hand, supports the idea that the viscoelastic behavior of filled polymers is governed by the spatial organization of the fillers in the matrix.

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We report in this paper an original and simple method for the grafting of polymer chains on colloidal silica particles. We first synthesize an alkoxyamine bi-functional initiator, by coupling 2-methyl-2-[N-tert-butyl-N-(dimethoxyphosphoryl-2,2-dimethylpropyl)aminoxy]propionic acid (MAMA) and an acrylate coupling agent, 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl acrylate (TPMA). Based on the fact that MAMA dissociates at 25 uC, but activates polymerization of acrylates at only 110 uC, it is possible to stop the reaction after the insertion of only one CLC acrylate double bond, in the temperature range 25-80 uC. This synthetic methodology is called ''in situ thermo-dependant trapping of carbon radicals''. The ''new'' initiator obtained at that stage is then grafted on Sto ¨ber silica particles, by simple condensation of its alkoxysilane functions. We show that the initiatorgrafting density is twice as high as the value obtained by our first approach of ''trapping of carbon radicals''. The last step of the synthesis process is the grafting from polymerization of polybutylacrylate (PBA). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) spectra show that the PBA-grafted silica particles are spherical, with a narrow size distribution, and do not form aggregates. Moreover, by this versatile route, the grafted polymer density, the molecular weight and therefore the polymer-layer morphology, can be easily controlled and tuned. It can also be extended to other monomers that work well with SG1 nitroxide.