Toughening Elastomers with Sacrificial Bonds and Watching Them Break

Toughening Up Elastomers Elastomers are soft polymer materials widely used in industry and daily life. Inspired by recent work on double-network hydrogels, Ducrot et al. (p. 186 ; see the Perspective by Gong ) designed interpenetrated network elastomers that contained isotropically prestretched chains as the first network. Double- and triple-network structures yielded elastomers with very high strength and toughness in comparison with the corresponding single networks.