Systems Chemistry in Self-Healing Materials

Self-healing materials are a kind of intelligent materials that have the ability to repair themselves after damage. By using chemical reaction networks to temporarily control the dynamics of covalent or coordination bonds, systems chemistry has recently shown great promise to reconcile the contradiction between the kinetic stability/inertness and intrinsic healing ability of synthetic materials. When compared to the traditional self-healing strategies for synthetic materials, the regulation of the healing ability of materials by systems chemistry looks clumsy, but it represents a way similar to the self-healing in biological systems, which is essentially regulated by complex biochemical reaction networks. Therefore, this field is worthy of further studies. In this Minireview, the significance, achievements and expectations of systems chemistry in regulating the healing ability of synthetic materials are discussed. We hope that it would be an inspiration for creating smart self-healing materials with life-like properties.