Self-Healing and Repairable Polymeric Materials: Dynamic Design, Mechanisms, and Applications
Aims and Scope
Polymeric materials play an indispensable role in modern industry, structural applications, and daily life. However, microcracks and mechanical degradation accumulated during service significantly shorten their lifespan and compromise safety. To address these challenges, self-healing and repairable polymeric materials have emerged as a revolutionary paradigm for sustainable materials design. By embedding dynamic covalent bonds, supramolecular interactions, or bio-inspired hierarchical networks into polymer matrices, these smart polymers can intrinsically repair physical or chemical damage, restore mechanical properties, and prolong their service lifetime under ambient or specific thermal/optical stimuli.
This Special Issue aims to bring together cutting-edge research, novel synthesis methodologies, thermodynamic and mechanistic insights, and industrial application studies regarding self-healing and repairable polymers. Submissions exploring new dynamic chemical design, structural-property relationships, anti-corrosion/flame-retardant coatings, and sustainable recycling strategies for plastics and elastomers are particularly encouraged. Suggested themes include, but are not limited to:
(1) Novel dynamic covalent and supramolecular chemistry for self-healing polymer networks.
(2) Room-temperature healable polyurethanes, polyureas, and elastomers.
(3) Thermodynamics and kinetics of network rearrangement and self-healing processes.
(4) Multifunctional self-healing coatings (anti-corrosion, flame retardancy, and impact resistance).
(5) Recyclable, reprocessable, and repairable thermosets and vitrimers.
(6) Bio-inspired design and nanocomposites for high-strength repairable polymers.……