Adjacent-Bonding Interconnected Polymer Networks Enable Lightweight Glass-Imitation Materials with Ultrahigh Modulus and Transparency

The high density and fragility of traditional silica glass limit its applications in some fields, such as distributed photovoltaic (PV), automobiles, or aerospace industries. Lightweight and transparent glass-imitation materials (GIMs) still face substantial challenges, especially regarding high modulus and surface scratching. In this study, we propose an interconnected polymer networks (ICN) structure of polyurethane (PU) phase and acrylate phase with adjacent bonding between them by employing a dual functional monomer hydroxypropyl acrylate (HPMA). Rheological, thermodynamic, mechanical, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and hydrogen spectroscopic nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) results prove the adjacent bonding interconnected polymer networks (ab-ICN) structure. By optimizing the mass ratio of the two phases, the resulting synergistic effect of the ab-ICN systems results in GIMs with excellent transparency (up to 91%, thickness 2.7 mm), high-temperature resistance (glass transition temperature up to 147 °C), high strength (flexural strength up to 141 MPa), high modulus (flexural modulus up to 3894 MPa), low expansion (67.36 μm (m·°C)−1) and scratch resistance. Furthermore, GIMs PV module shows analogous photoelectric conversion efficiencies to glass PV module with a 45.6% mass reduction, offering a promising lightweight avenue for developing PV and other applications.