3D printing of reprogrammable liquid crystal elastomers with exchangeable boronic ester bonds

Abstract

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are a kind of soft actuating materials with large reversible deformation ability, which can work as the “motor” to exhibit complex deformations and drive the locomotion of soft robots. The deformation of LCEs depends on the three-dimensional (3D) shape of whole structure and alignment patterns of mesogens. Various methods have been employed to fabricate the LCE structure with desired shapes and mesogen alignments. However, conventional 3D printed LCEs require continuous thermal energy input to maintain their actuated shapes. The LCEs cannot be reprocessed and reprogrammed once cured. Herein, we introduce dynamic boronic ester bonds into the ink, with which the printed LCE structures are capable of being reprogrammed from polydomain into monodomain state and vice versa. We further explore the effects of printing parameters and content of dynamic covalent bonds on the actuation performance and reprogramming ability. The actuated shape could be well predicted with finite element method. The dynamic printable LCEs developed here offer new strategy and large design space for LCE structures.