彈性是聚合物的一種重要性質，過去百年不斷有科研人員試圖探索出一套可以量化預測材料彈性的方法，但是聚合物內存在諸多缺陷和一些影響材料彈性的未知因素使得這項研究工作變得異常困難，但是最近MIT的科研人員取得了重大突破，以水凝膠網絡聚合物為例，建立一種方法可以分析測量材料的內部缺陷，然后精確地計算出聚合物網絡的彈性性能。首先科研人員計算了單個缺陷對材料彈性的影響，然后根據測量整個材料的缺陷獲得材料整體缺陷對彈性的影響大小，而且理論計算與實際測試結果相符。通過試驗不同材料后，研究人員將理論完善拓展至目前可以預測各種聚合物材料的彈性，對的，目前這套理論可以預測各種不同的聚合物材料的彈性性能，這是科研人員首次建立一種理論可以通過缺陷預測聚合物的彈性，這項研究成果意義重大，因為可以幫助研究人員更加精準地設計所需彈性性能的材料。這項研究成果發布在最新的《Science》雜志上。

　　參考文獻：Quantifying the impact of molecular defects on polymer network elasticity;Mingjiang Zhong1,2,*, Rui Wang2,*, Ken Kawamoto1,*, Bradley D. Olsen2,†, Jeremiah A. Johnson1,†;Science 16 Sep 2016:Vol. 353, Issue 6305, pp. 1264-1268;DOI: 10.1126/science.aag0184

　　Abstract

　　Elasticity, one of the most important properties of a soft material, is difficult to quantify in polymer networks because of the presence of topological molecular defects in these materials. Furthermore, the impact of these defects on bulk elasticity is unknown. We used rheology, disassembly spectrometry, and simulations to measure the shear elastic modulus and count the numbers of topological “loop” defects of various order in a series of polymer hydrogels, and then used these data to evaluate the classical phantom and affine network theories of elasticity. The results led to a real elastic network theory (RENT) that describes how loop defects affect bulk elasticity. Given knowledge of the loop fractions, RENT provides predictions of the shear elastic modulus that are consistent with experimental observations.