Enhancing mechanical performance of a covalent self-healing material by sacrificial noncovalent bonds

Polymers that repair themselves after mechanical damage can significantly improve their durability and safety. A major goal in the field of self-healing materials is to combine robust mechanical and efficient healing properties. Here, we show that incorporation of sacrificial bonds into a self-repairable network dramatically improves the overall mechanical properties. Specifically, we use simple secondary amide side chains to create dynamic energy dissipative hydrogen bonds in a covalently cross-linked polymer network, which can self-heal via olefin cross-metathesis. We envision that this straightforward sacrificial bonding strategy can be employed to improve mechanical properties in a variety of self-healing systems.