Nanonetwork Thermosets from Templated Polymerization for Enhanced Energy Dissipation

Herein, we aim to develop a facile method for the fabrication of mechanical metamaterials from templated polymerization of thermosets including phenolic and epoxy resins using self-assembled block copolymer, polystyrene–polydimethylsiloxane with tripod network (gyroid), and tetrapod network (diamond) structures, as templates. Nanoindentation studies on the nanonetwork thermosets fabricated reveal enhanced energy dissipation from intrinsic brittle thermosets due to the deliberate structuring; the calculated energy dissipation for gyroid phenolic resins is 0.23 nJ whereas the one with diamond structure gives a value of 0.33 nJ. Consistently, the gyroid-structured epoxy gives a high energy dissipation value of 0.57 nJ, and the one with diamond structure could reach 0.78 nJ. These enhanced properties are attributed to the isotropic periodicity of the nanonetwork texture with plastic deformation, and the higher number of struts in the tetrapod diamond network in contrast to tripod gyroid, as confirmed by the finite element analysis.