Novel Method for Preparing a High-Performance Auxetic Foam Directly from Polymer Resin by a One-Pot CO₂ Foaming Process

So far, negative Poisson’s ratio foam (auxetic foam) is usually prepared by the transformation of conventional polymer foam, and it is a challenge to prepare auxetic foam directly from polymer resin. In this work, a novel method based on the synergism between the phase transition of water and the permeability rate difference of the CO2 blowing agent from air in the foaming process is put forward to prepare auxetic foam directly from the polymer resin. Using this method, herein, nylon elastomer (NE) foam with auxetic behavior is successfully prepared from NE resin by a one-pot CO2 foaming method inside an autoclave aided by water; the obtained auxetic foam has a Poisson’s ratio value of −1.29 and has excellent tensile cycle stability and energy absorption performance. This method breaks through the bottleneck for preparing auxetic foams from the polymer resin directly, which is also green and environment-friendly. It is believed that the abovementioned method also applies to other thermoplastic polymers, which paves a way for designing and preparing multifunctional auxetic foam materials in the future via a one-pot CO2 foaming process. Furthermore, this work first demonstrates that the transformation between auxetic foam and positive Poisson’s ratio foam is reversible due to the closed cell structure, which provides an opportunity to reversibly adjust the performance and the shape of polymer foam materials.