Covalent Adaptable Network and Self-Healing Materials: Current Trends and Future Prospects in Sustainability

Abstract

This work estimates that if the growth of polymer production continues at its current rate of 5% each year, the current annual production of 395 million tons of plastic will exceed 1000 million tons by 2039. Only 9% of the plastics that are currently produced are recycled while most of these materials end up in landfills or leak into oceans, thus creating severe environmental challenges. Covalent adaptable networks (CANs) materials can play a significant role in reducing the burden posed by plastics materials on the environment because CANs are reusable and recyclable. This review is focused on recent research related to CANs of polycarbonates, polyesters, polyamides, polyurethanes, and polyurea. In particular, trends in self-healing CANs systems, the market value of these materials, as well as mechanistic insights regarding polycarbonates, polyesters, polyamides, polyurethanes, and polyurea are highlighted in this review. Finally, the challenges and outlook for CANs are described herein.

Build-To-Specification Vanillin and Phloroglucinol Derived Biobased Epoxy-Amine Vitrimers

“…Therefore, new strategies to move towards a more sustainable and competitive composite industry, also from the circular economy perspective, are highly demanded. In this paper, we focus on two strategies to face these limitations which consist of (i) using new monomers derived from renewable feedstock as replacement of traditional monomers and (ii) incorporating reversible crosslinks to turn the polymer matrices into covalent adaptable networks (CANs) [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ].…”

New alternatives to single‐use plastics: Starch and chitosan‐graft‐polydimethylsiloxane‐coated paper for water‐ and oil‐resistant applications

“…1 H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy 1 H NMR spectra of the polymers were recorded with a 500 MHz NMR spectrometer (Agilent USA). The samples were prepared by dissolving ∼5 mg of each polymer in 0.5 mL of D 2 O/CD 3 COOD.…”

“…However, due to their proliferation in the environment, they are notoriously challenging to recycle with severe impacts on the planet and environment. [1][2][3] To address this problem, we need to improve the plastic recycling practices, and where possible, we need to shift away from plastics, such as by using paper-based alternatives for single-use plastic items. Paper is an inexpensive, renewable, and biodegradable material that offers a great alternative for plastics in scenarios where short-term use is desirable.…”

Reversible hetero-Diels–Alder amine hardener as drop-in replacement for healable epoxy coatings

“…Healable materials have the inherent capacity to repair physical and/or chemical damage to regain their integrity and associated properties, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] following two main strategies: extrinsic [8][9][10][11] and intrinsic healing. [12][13][14][15] The former relies on pre-assembled healing agents (such as unreacted monomer, catalyst and solvent), which are incorporated into the material during fabrication.…”