Fabrication of epoxy/thiol polymer-based polymer-dispersed liquid crystals containing a catalyst with multi-amine structures

Accelerators are usually used to promote the thermal curing of epoxy/thiol mixtures and help to improve the preparation efficiency of epoxy-based polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs). However, some accelerators may cause serious yellowing of the resultant products and their catalytic effect is also limited. In this work, a commercial compound with multi-amine structures is employed as the catalyst to prepare epoxy/thiol polymer-based PDLC films. The experimental results indicate that this catalyst not only does not lead to the serious yellowing problem of the PDLC films, but also can obviously improve the thermal curing rate between epoxy and thiol monomers in the PDLC system. The effects of curing times and curing temperatures on the electric-optical performance and the polymer morphology of the epoxy-based PDLCs are studied systematically. A flexible epoxy-based PDLC film, which can be completely driven by a voltage below the safety voltage (36 V), is also realized successfully.