A universal strategy towards self-healing materials via dynamic interfacial liquid metal coordination

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Polymer Chemistry
• Coordination Chemistry

Background:

• Self-healing polymer materials are crucial for modern technologies, but existing metal-ligand coordination methods have limitations in bond strength.
• Current self-healing systems often struggle with achieving optimal bond stability for effective material repair.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a universal strategy for creating highly efficient self-healing polymers.
• To engineer self-healable thermal interface materials (TIMs) that overcome irreversible damage issues.

Main Methods:

• Incorporating coordination metals into liquid metals (LMs) to form multi-component LMs (mLMs).
• Utilizing the fluidity of mLMs to create reversible interfacial coordination from common metal-ligand systems (e.g., Ag-S, Zn/Cu-imidazole).

Main Results:

• Achieved over 90% self-healing efficiency in general polymers through dynamic interfacial coordination.
• Developed self-healable TIMs with ultra-high thermal conductivity, leveraging mLMs.
• Demonstrated significant thermal management capabilities, reducing CPU peak temperature by 20°C under extreme conditions.

Conclusions:

• The mLMs strategy provides a universal approach for advanced self-healing materials.
• This work advances research in self-healing, coordination chemistry, liquid metal science, soft electronics, and thermal management.