High-performance healable plastics: Focusing topological structure design based on constitutional dynamic chemistry

Abstract

Over the past three decades, significant efforts have been dedicated to developing polymeric materials with exciting healable ability; however, stiff and healable plastics with high glass transition temperatures (T_g) have received relatively less attention compared to their soft counterparts such as gels and elastomers due to the inherent trade-off between mechanical robustness and dynamics. High-performance plastics are irreplaceable in the fields of engineering and industry, making it a challenging yet urgent task to confer them with desired healable properties whilst maintaining high mechanical strength. In this review, we first present recent advances in the field of high-performance healable plastics based on constitutional dynamic chemistry, from the perspective of different topological structures including linear-, branched- and network types. Meanwhile, we also elaborate on various toughening strategies for existing healable plastics, mainly centered around molecular to micrometer scale modifications. Moreover, we also provide a detailed exposition of previous reports on the autonomously room-temperature self-healing plastics, which represent a groundbreaking development in the realm of advanced healable plastics. Eventually, we emphasize diverse functionalized healable plastics to illustrate their potential for practical implementation, and propose an outlook on the future development of healable plastics.