Over the past few years, there has been a great deal of interest in the development of hydrogel materials with tunable structural, mechanical, and rheological properties, which exhibit rapid and autonomous self-healing and self-recovery for utilization in a broad range of applications, from soft robotics to tissue engineering. However, self-healing hydrogels generally either possess mechanically robust or rapid self-healing properties but not both. Hence, the development of a mechanically robust hydrogel material with autonomous self-healing on the time scale of seconds is yet to be fully realized. Here, the current advances in the development of autonomous self-healing hydrogels are reviewed. Specifically, methods to test self-healing efficiencies and recoveries, mechanisms of autonomous self-healing, and mechanically robust hydrogels are presented. The trends indicate that hydrogels that self-heal better also achieve self-healing faster, as compared to gels that only partially self-heal. Recommendations to guide future development of self-healing hydrogels are offered and the potential relevance of self-healing hydrogels to the exciting research areas of 3D/4D printing, soft robotics, and assisted health technologies is highlighted.

Self-Healing Hydrogels

Elastomers are widely used because of their large-strain reversible deformability. Most unfilled elastomers suffer from a poor mechanical strength, which limits their use. Using sacrificial bonds, we show how brittle, unfilled elastomers can be strongly reinforced in stiffness and toughness (up to 4 megapascals and 9 kilojoules per square meter) by introducing a variable proportion of isotropically prestretched chains that can break and dissipate energy before the material fails. Chemoluminescent cross-linking molecules, which emit light as they break, map in real time where and when many of these internal bonds break ahead of a propagating crack. The simple methodology that we use to introduce sacrificial bonds, combined with the mapping of where bonds break, has the potential to stimulate the development of new classes of unfilled tough elastomers and better molecular models of the fracture of soft materials.

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Toughening Elastomers with Sacrificial Bonds and Watching Them Break

The possibility to change the molecular assembled structures of organic and organometallic materials through mechanical stimulation is emerging as a general and powerful concept for the design of functional materials. In particular, the photophysical properties such as photoluminescence color, quantum yield, and emission lifetime of organic and organometallic fluorophores can significantly depend on the molecular packing, enabling the development of molecular materials with mechanoresponsive luminescence characteristics. Indeed, an increasing number of studies have shown in recent years that mechanical force can be utilized to change the molecular arrangement, and thereby the optical response, of luminescent molecular assemblies of π-conjugated organic or organometallic molecules. Here, the development of such mechanoresponsive luminescent (MRL) molecular assemblies consisting of organic or organometallic molecules is reviewed and emerging trends in this research field are summarized. After a brief introduction of mechanoresponsive luminescence observed in molecular assemblies, the concept of "luminescent molecular domino" is introduced, before molecular materials that show turn-on/off of photoluminescence in response to mechanical stimulation are reviewed. Mechanically stimulated multicolor changes and water-soluble MRL materials are also highlighted and approaches that combine the concept of MRL molecular assemblies with other materials types are presented in the last part of this progress report.

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Mechanoresponsive Luminescent Molecular Assemblies: An Emerging Class of Materials

An electronic (e-) skin is expected to experience significant wear and tear over time. Therefore, self-healing stretchable materials that are simultaneously soft and with high fracture energy, that is high tolerance of damage or small cracks without propagating, are essential requirements for the realization of robust e-skin. However, previously reported elastomers and especially self-healing polymers are mostly viscoelastic and lack high mechanical toughness. Here, a new class of polymeric material crosslinked through rationally designed multistrength hydrogen bonding interactions is reported. The resultant supramolecular network in polymer film realizes exceptional mechanical properties such as notch-insensitive high stretchability (1200%), high toughness of 12 000 J m-2 , and autonomous self-healing even in artificial sweat. The tough self-healing materials enable the wafer-scale fabrication of robust and stretchable self-healing e-skin devices, which will provide new directions for future soft robotics and skin prosthetics.

Tough and Water-Insensitive Self-Healing Elastomer for Robust Electronic Skin.

Conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) are a unique class of materials that combine extended π-conjugation with a permanently microporous skeleton. Since their discovery in 2007, CMPs have become established as an important subclass of porous materials. A wide range of synthetic building blocks and network-forming reactions offers an enormous variety of CMPs with different properties and structures. This has allowed CMPs to be developed for gas adsorption and separations, chemical adsorption and encapsulation, heterogeneous catalysis, photoredox catalysis, light emittance, sensing, energy storage, biological applications, and solar fuels production. Here we review the progress of CMP research since its beginnings and offer an outlook for where these materials might be headed in the future. We also compare the prospect for CMPs against the growing range of conjugated crystalline covalent organic frameworks (COFs).

Advances in Conjugated Microporous Polymers.

Nature uses mechanochemical transduction processes to achieve diverse and vital functions, such as hearing, cellular adhesion and gating of ion channels. One fascinating example of biological mechanotransduction is the emission of light on mechanical stimulation. However, molecular-level transduction of force into luminescence in a synthetic system remains a challenge. Here, we show that bis(adamantyl)-1,2-dioxetane emits visible light when force is applied to a polymer chain or network in which this unit is incorporated. Bright-blue luminescence was observed on sonication of solutions of dioxetane-containing linear polymers and on the straining of polymer networks with dioxetane crosslinkers. Light is emitted from the adamantanone-excited state that forms on opening of the four-membered dioxetane ring. Increased sensitivity and colour tuning were achieved by energy transfer to suitable acceptors. High spatial and temporal resolutions highlight the potential to study the failure of polymeric materials in unprecedented detail.

Mechanically induced chemiluminescence from polymers incorporating a 1,2-dioxetane unit in the main chain

N,N′-Bicarbazole with almost spatially vertical structure was synthesized by a facile method and was demonstrated as a versatile building block for conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) through transition metal catalyzed coupling polymerizations including Yamamoto, Suzuki, and Sonogashira polymerizations. The porosities and morphologies of four N,N′-bicarbazole-based CMPs were systematically studied and compared. With high surface area, good thermal stability and microporous structure, the CMP synthesized by Yamamoto polymerization exhibited excellent adsorption capacities of CO2 and organic dyes, and the maximum adsorption capacity of methylene blue (MB) in water reached up to 1016 mg g–1. The good adsorption properties of N,N′-bicarbazole CMPs could be a good candidate for potential applications in water purification and treatment.

N,N′-Bicarbazole: A Versatile Building Block toward the Construction of Conjugated Porous Polymers for CO2 Capture and Dyes Adsorption

Mechanoresponsive polymers with intense red emission are highly desirable in view of the strong penetrability and high resolution of red luminescence. Herein we introduce the sensitized luminescence of rare-earth Eu(III) complexes into the mechanochemiluminescence from polymeric dioxetane in a covalent way. By controlling the energy-transfer process from mechanically broken dioxetane to the Eu(III) center, bright red emission from transparent poly(methyl acrylate) films was achieved for the first time. Importantly, mechanoluminescence sensitivity is greatly improved, enabling the location and timing of bond scission with high resolution. A sensitive stretchable device with the polymer film as an emissive layer was fabricated by a facile surface-engineering method, which can emit patterned red light upon deformation. This sensitized mechanoluminescence design thus expands the useful space of luminescent stress probes.

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Sensitized mechanoluminescence design toward mechanically induced intense red emission from transparent polymer films

A novel type of π-extended 1,10-phenanthroline, specifically with fused thiophene groups at the less exploited 3-, 4-, 7-, and 8-positions of the phenanthroline ring, and its conjugated polymers were designed and synthesized The current developed route is based on the Bischler–Napieralski cyclization of the (1,2-phenylene)diamide precursor, which offers a facile and versatile strategy for preparing soluble and well-defined 1,10-phenanthroline derivatives and their analogues High molecular weight poly(phenanthroline-co-fluorene)s with good solubility in common organic solvents or water were prepared by palladium-catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura–Schluter polycondensation The optical responsive properties of these thiophene-fused 1,10-phenanthroline-containing polymers have demonstrated these polymers could be a good candidate for potential applications as luminescent chemosensor materials thanks to the specific repeating unit along the backbone

Yulan Chen

Papers

Toughening Elastomers with Sacrificial Bonds and Watching Them Break

Mechanically induced chemiluminescence from polymers incorporating a 1,2-dioxetane unit in the main chain

N,N′-Bicarbazole: A Versatile Building Block toward the Construction of Conjugated Porous Polymers for CO2 Capture and Dyes Adsorption

Sensitized mechanoluminescence design toward mechanically induced intense red emission from transparent polymer films

Thiophene-Fused 1,10-Phenanthroline and Its Conjugated Polymers