Due to its simple curing and very good mechanical properties, Sylgard 184 belongs to the most widely and frequently used silicones in many industrial applications such as microfluidics and microengineering. On top of that its mechanical properties are further controllable through the curing temperature, which may vary from ambient temperature up to 200 °C; the lower the curing temperature the lower the mechanical properties (Johnston et al. in J Micromech Microeng 24:7, 2014. 10.1088/0960-1317/24/3/035017). However, certain specialised application may require even a softer binder than the low curing temperature allows for. In this study we show that this softening can be achieved with the addition of silicone oil into the Sylgard 184 system. To this end a series of Sylgard 184 samples with varying silicone oil concentrations were prepared and tested (tensile test, rotational rheometer) in order to determine how curing temperature and silicone oil content affect mechanical properties. Curing reaction of the polymer system was found to observe 2nd order kinetics in all cases, regardless the oil concentration used. The results suggest that within the tested concentration range the silicone oil addition can be used to soften commercial silicone Sylgard 184.

由于其简单的固化和非常好的机械性能，Sylgard 184 属于在微流体和微工程等许多工业应用中使用最广泛和最常用的有机硅。最重要的是，它的机械性能可以通过固化温度进一步控制，固化温度可能从环境温度到 200 °C 不等；固化温度越低，机械性能越低（Johnston et al. in J Micromech Microeng 24:7, 2014. 10.1088/0960-1317/24/3/035017）。然而，某些特殊应用可能需要比低固化温度所允许的更软的粘合剂。在这项研究中，我们表明通过将硅油添加到 Sylgard 184 系统中可以实现这种软化。为此，制备并测试了一系列具有不同硅油浓度的 Sylgard 184 样品（拉伸测试、旋转流变仪），以确定固化温度和硅油含量如何影响机械性能。发现聚合物体系的固化反应在所有情况下都观察到二级动力学，而不管使用的油浓度如何。结果表明，在测试浓度范围内，添加硅油可用于软化商业有机硅 Sylgard 184。