Atypical Liquid Crystal Elastomers: from Materials Innovation to Scalable processing and Transformative applications

ALCEMIST challenges the conventional engineering mindset where passive static components (beams, wires, joints) are driven by active dynamic ones (motors, dampers, sensors); our innovative materials enable the combined functionality in a single component.

This bold ambition is feasible because our research will unlock the full potential of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), unique responsive materials that reversibly change shape, colour, adhesive or damping properties, triggered by stimuli like heat, light, humidity or strain.

We propose a radically new sustainable materials platform based on polysaccharides, functionalising precursors such that anyone-using click chemistry-can make LCEs that are powerful yet biocompatible and biodegradable, at one tenth of the cost of state-of-the-art LCEs. Further, using bond-exchange chemistry, ALCEMIST LCEs will be re-processable and re-usable.

We also present a ground-breaking processing approach based on flow patterning to make large-scale LCEs of complex shapes and actuation modes.

The synergy of three perfectly complementary and highly productive scientists, each a recognised leader in their field, enables this transformative approach to making atypical LCEs.As all our methods are ideal for industrial upscaling, we will also demonstrate the yet untapped potential of LCEs when they are applied in atypical contexts, totally different from the current mainstream academic focus.

These range from adhesives that can be reversibly debonded on demand or sun-powered adaptive building elements which save energy and improve indoor atmosphere, to microhearts and peristaltic vasculature that can remove the growth limits of lab-grown organs, or smart threads that give doctors critical feedback on suture tension when conducting robotic surgery.

By overthrowing multiple conventions in the ways LCEs are synthesised, studied and engineered, ALCEMIST will enable and stimulate new lines of research, basic and applied, across large communities.