Boron-based magnetoactive Polymers – the new smart material

Abstract:
Boron-based silicones were a serendipitous invention that came about through attempts to fabricate artificial rubber in order to fulfil the wartime shortages of natural latex products during the 1940s. The resulting compound was a highly compliant but simultaneously rheopectic (shear hardening) gel. Though never actually achieving its intended goal, it was later successfully marketed as a children's toy under such names as “silly putty” or “bouncing putty”. It has also been used in various industrial applications including de-burring and polishing of castings. Mixed with magnetically soft and hard particulate fillers, magnetoactive Boron-silicone-oxide Polymers (MBP) exhibit extraordinary magneto-mechanical and magneto-electrical characteristics similar to, but greatly exceeding, those of conventional PDMS-based magnetoactive polymers (MAP). Being more than just simple visco-elastic materials, when combined with hard magnetic fillers, the resulting MBP demonstrates energy-free and almost indefinitely sustainable volumetric (3D) shape memory effects.