Self-healing polymers with nanomaterials and nanostructures

Self-healing polymers have attracted a lot of attentions in the past two decades, driven by their intriguing applications, new synthetic approaches and understanding of nanoscale mechanism and discovery of nanomaterials. Nanomaterials and nanostructures in polymers provide large surface area, rich functional groups and unique properties that facilitate the healing process. This review provides an introduction of the key studies from a historical standpoint and the chronological advancement of the design philosophy behind self-healing phenomena of polymers. Recent advance in utilizing nanomaterials and nanostructures to facilitate the healing and introduce novel functionalities in self-healing polymers is extensively reviewed. In addition, innovative characterization methods are employed to analyze and understand the underlying polymer chain interactions occurring at the interface at micro- and nanoscale. The knowledge of the healing process at the nanoscopic level and the contribution of nanomaterials and nanostructures in self-healing has greatly advanced the design, fabrication and application of self-healing polymers.