Self-repairing material systems―a dream or a reality?

Abstract

Currently, most industrial materials rely entirely on passive protection mechanisms; such me chanisms are readily applicable and universal for many different materials systems. However, they will always stay passive, and therefore their lifetime and functionality is limited and related to the amount of protective additives and the intensity of their consumption. Therefore, better, and preferentially active process for the protection/repair of damaged materials―selfrepairing processes―were developed and need to be developed further. Although it sounds futuristic or like a fiction in the modern, trendy times, which in many ways affects also directions of research; self healing of material systems exists already for a long time in all sorts of systems of materials or functionalities. The aim of this work is to go beyond the scope of a classical review the ones published recently in this field which almost entirely focused only onto polymeric systems. In this work, an analysis of the underlying functional and constructional principles of existing natural and synthetically selfhealing systems spanning over a range of classes of materials is given leading to general rules and principles for the design of new and application tailored selfhealing material systems.