Facile preparation of epoxy based elastomers with tunable Tgs and mechanical properties

In this work, a secondary amine-capped polyaspartic ester (PAE-D230) was synthesized using diethyl maleate and amine-terminated polyether (D230) via Michael addition reaction. By modulating the molar ratio of preliminary amine containing D230 and secondary amine-capped PAE-D230 during the curing process with epoxy precursor E44, we obtained epoxy shape memory polymers with tunable Tgs(−12–20 °C), controllable mechanical properties with tensile stress from 0.8 to 14.1 MPa, tensile modulus from 0.7 to 872.0 MPa, and elongation at break from 45.2 to 195.1%. The influence of the composition of curing components on the thermal properties, thermomechanical, mechanical properties, shape memory effect were systematically studied by DSC, TGA, DMA, tensile-stress measurements.