Self-healing Epoxy Resin with Multi-Stimuli-Responsive Behavior

Self-healing ability of epoxy have been aroused as a strategy to improve the performance of epoxy-based structures, coatings and adhesives. Though there are several reports on the development of self-healing epoxy, the sustained and controlled healing of epoxy matrix is critical for achieving desired performance. Hence, scientists paid much attention to designing self-healing systems that would trigger and act upon certain stimuli. The stimuli should be non-destructing and available in the user environment. Both intrinsic and extrinsic self-healing in epoxy systems have been tailored to respond to the external environment. Earlier, single stimuli responsive self-healing epoxy systems were introduced as smart materials with superior performance. Later on, dual-to multiple stimuli-responsive self-healing epoxy systems were developed. Moreover, other epoxy systems have been developed to sense different combinations of stimuli such as light, temperature, pH, moisture, and restore the original functionalities. As a budding research area, practicing more advanced designs on multi-stimuli self-healing would benefit future material developments.