Empowering mechanochemistry with multi-mechanophore polymer architectures

The development of multi-mechanophore polymers (MMPs) has empowered new methodologies for observing, quantifying, and exploiting mechanochemical transformations. For example, techniques such as single molecule force spectroscopy and pulsed ultrasound can be used to induce and observe up to hundreds of chemical reactions within a single polymer, enabling mechanistic insights into mechanochemical reactivity. At the same time, MMPs allow for the substantial mechanochemical remodeling of polymers and associated changes in material properties. This minireview presents synthetic approaches that have been used to make MMPs, methods that have been developed to probe and characterize their reactivity, and changes in properties that have been observed through their mechanochemical response.