Molecular design of supramolecular polymers with chelated units and their application as functional materials

New Self-Healing Metallosupramolecular Copolymers with a Complex of Cobalt Acrylate and 4′-Phenyl-2,2′:6′,2″-terpyridine

Currently, the chemistry of self-healing polymers is aimed not only at obtaining materials with high self-healing efficiency, but also at improving their mechanical performance. This paper reports on a successful attempt to obtain self-healing copolymers films of acrylic acid, acrylamide and a new metal-containing complex of cobalt acrylate with a 4′-phenyl-2,2′:6′,2″-terpyridine ligand. Samples of the formed copolymer films were characterized by ATR/FT-IR and UV-vis spectroscopy, elemental analysis, DSC and TGA, SAXS, WAXS and XRD studies. The incorporation of the metal-containing complex directly into the polymer chain results in an excellent tensile strength (122 MPa) and modulus of elasticity (4.3 GPa) of the obtained films. The resulting copolymers demonstrated self-healing properties both at acidic pH (assisted by HCl healing) with effective preservation of mechanical properties, and autonomously in a humid atmosphere at room temperature without the use of initiators. At the same time, with a decrease in the content of acrylamide, a decrease in the reducing properties was observed, possibly due to an insufficient amount of amide groups to form hydrogen bonds through the interface with terminal carboxyl groups, as well as a decrease in the stability of complexes in samples with a high content of acrylic acid.

Construction of Janus dendrimers through a self-assembly approach involving chiral discrimination at a focal point

A strategy to build Janus dendrimers via the chirality-directed self-assembly of heteroleptic Zn(ii) BOX complexes is reported. The method allows quantitative synthesis of Janus dendrimers in situ without the need for purifications. Each dendritic domain of the Janus dendrimers can be recycled upon disassembly at the focal point.

Amphiphilic poly(ether urethanes) carrying associative terpyridine side groups with controlled spacing

A synthesis for metallo-supramolecular crosslinkable polyurethanes with uniform vs. random sticker spacings is presented to study how sticker density and distribution affect the mechanical properties of the corresponding gels.

Basic Approaches to the Design of Intrinsic Self-Healing Polymers for Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) as a revolutionary system for harvesting mechanical energy have demonstrated high vitality and great advantage, which open up great prospects for their application in various areas of the society of the future. The past few years have seen exponential growth in many new classes of self-healing polymers (SHPs) for TENGs. This review presents and evaluates the SHP range for TENGs, and also attempts to assess the impact of modern polymer chemistry on the development of advanced materials for TENGs. Among the most widely used SHPs for TENGs, the analysis of non-covalent (hydrogen bond, metal-ligand bond), covalent (imine bond, disulfide bond, borate bond) and multiple bond-based SHPs in TENGs has been performed. Particular attention is paid to the use of SHPs with shape memory as components of TENGs. Finally, the problems and prospects for the development of SHPs for TENGs are outlined.

Self-healing and shape memory metallopolymers: state-of-the-art and future perspectives

Recent achievements and problems associated with the use of metallopolymers as self-healing and shape memory materials are presented and evaluated.