An Internal Cure for Damaged Polymers

Abstract

A vascular system of microchannels delivers polymer-forming reagents that seal and repair large damaged regions. [Also see Report by White et al. ]

Microwave‐Assisted Reversible Coordination‐Mediated Polymerization for Self‐Healing Hybrid Materials: RGO@PDA Simultaneous as Catalyst and Nanocomposites in One‐Pot

“…Healable polymeric systems can be achieved through a series of approaches, which can be divided into extrinsic and intrinsic methods. Different strategies of extrinsic methods (i.e., microcapsule, hollow fiber, and vascular approach) and intrinsic methods (i.e., Diels–Alder reaction, hydrogen bonding, host–guest interaction, π–π stacking, and metal–ligand interaction) were developed and highlighted in many application fields.…”

Microvascular-based self-healing materials

“…The use of a two-stage polymer chemistry was recently described to fill damage volumes that are one hundred times larger than previously healed by microvascular approaches [47,98]. The first stage of the polymer chemistry gels the mixed healing liquids to allow infusion of damage greater in size than that allowed by surface tension alone [47].…”

“…Though successful on short-term laboratory-scale healing, the effects of aging and challenging environments on healing chemistries and regions healed by microvascular means require further study [98]. Moreover, repair and maintenance of microvascular structures once deployed remains a rarely addressed topic [104].…”

Advances in healing-on-demand polymers and polymer composites

“…This is one of the concerns when implementing vascular network for crack healing purposes. In the case of large volume damage, it requires overcoming the interplay between mass transport, environmental factors, intrinsic forces (such as surface tension), and extrinsic forces (such as gravity) that act on the liquid reagents [222,223]. How to heal largescale or wide-opened crack without mass loss is a challenge.…”