Hard Autonomous Self‐Healing Supramolecular Materials—A Contradiction in Terms?

Achieving the unachievable: Hard supramolecular materials displaying autonomous self-healing have been considered unachievable because of the mobility required to reconstitute supramolecular interactions after rupture. Now, relatively hard thermoplastic elastomers have been reported that meet these requirements. The picture shows a triblock copolymer containing soft supramolecular “self-healing” domains and hard, structure-giving domains.