## 3 Results and Discussion
The proton signal integration of the furan (proton at position b) and PDMS chain ratio was found to be 1:5.6. This indicates that not all the sillyhydride groups were functionalized after hydrosilylation reaction. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) was used to measure the size of the HNP-SiH before and after furan functionalization by dissolving the respective samples in tetrahydrofuran. The measurement showed that the particles were in the nano-scale range. The radius of the HNP-SiH was found to be mostly between 40 and 55 nm (Figure 4a), whereas the radius of the HNP-F was found to be predominantly between the 50 and 70 nm (Figure 4b) range. The size difference in radius can be attributed to the aggregation of furan functionalized particles. Figure 3: The 500 MHz \({}^{1}\)H NMR spectra of **(a)** Silyhydride functionalized HNP(HNP-SiH) and **(b)** Furan functionalized HNP(HNP-F). Figure 2: ATR-FTIR spectrum of (a) HNP-SiH (black), (b) HNP-F (red). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to study the thermal stability of all synthesized materials, and the onset temperature (T\({}_{\rm d}\)), degradation maxima (T\({}_{\rm max}\)), and % char yield are listed in Table 2. The analyses were performed using nitrogen flow and scanned from room temperature to 700 \({}^{\circ}\)C. Figure 5a shows the decomposition of PS-F (blue curve and indicated by blue single blue arrow), which begins at \(\sim\)413 \({}^{\circ}\)C. The thermal decomposition of HNP-F (red curve) shows a two-step mass loss process between 25 \({}^{\circ}\)C and 700 \({}^{\circ}\)C, which indicates a two-phase system of hairy nanoparticles. The first degradation step, at approximately 382 \({}^{\circ}\)C (single red arrow), Figure 5a, is attributed to the decomposition of the PS Core. The second degradation step, at around 515 \({}^{\circ}\)C (double red arrow), corresponds to the decomposition of the PDMS hairs of the nanoparticles. When compared with the decomposition temperature for PS-F, the lowering of the decomposition temperature of the PS-core in the HNP is attributed to the interplay between the PS and PDMS segments. Figure 4: DLS data of HNP before (**a**) and after (**b**) functionalization. Figure 5: (**a**) TGA first-derivative curve and (**b**) DSC thermograms of HNP-F (red), PS-F (blue), PDMS-F (pink). Furthermore, DSC was also used to determine the thermal properties and the glass transition temperature (Tg) for all polymers, and the polymers' thermograms are shown in Figure 5b. As seen in the DSC thermogram, the glass transition temperature of the PS was observed at 103 \({}^{\circ}\)C. The DSC thermogram of the HNP shows two distinct transition temperatures. The polystyrene core's glass transition temperature (Tg) was observed at 110 \({}^{\circ}\)C. The higher glass transition temperature than the pure homopolymers is because the polystyrene core of the HNPs is crosslinked. Because of the operational limitations of the DSC instrument, a glass transition temperature (Tg) of the PDMS segment was not determined. However, a melting transition temperature (Tm) of the PDMS phase was observed at \(-24\)\({}^{\circ}\)C. Therefore, the HNPs are microphase-separated materials and should function as thermoplastic elastomers [34]. Crosslinking via a Diels-Alder Reaction  
The crosslinking of HNP-F was carried out by the reaction with a bismaleimide (BMI), i.e., a Diels-Alder reaction (Scheme 2). The reaction between PDMS-F and PS-F and BMI was also studied. The FT-IR and UV-Vis spectrums were used to study the Diels-Alder reactions. Figure 6 shows the visual observation of the crosslinking and decrosslinking of the HNP-F with BMI. Figure 6a is a solution of the HNP-F and BMI, and Figure 6b is the crosslinked gel prepared by heating to 50 \({}^{\circ}\)C for 2 h. The gel can be quickly decrosslinked (Figure 6c,d) by heating to 150 \({}^{\circ}\)C for one minute to recover the uncrosslinked HNP-F. The recovered HNP-F can be crosslinked again by heating it to 50 \({}^{\circ}\)C for two hours.