Chemistry of Crosslinking Processes for Self‐Healing Polymers

Recent developments in material design have seen an exponential increase of polymers and polymer composites that can repair themselves in response to damage. In this review, a distinction is made between extrinsic materials, where the self-healing property is obtained by adding healing agents to the material to be repaired, and intrinsic materials, where self-healing is achieved by the material itself through its chemical nature. An overview of the crosslinking chemistries used in self-healing materials will be given, discussing the advantages and drawbacks of each system. The review is not only aiming to enable researchers to compare their ongoing research with the state-of-the-art but also to serve as a guide for the newcomers, which allows for a selection of the most promising self-healing chemistries.