From Passive Protection to Active Adaptation: Advances in Functional and Stimuli-Responsive Coatings for Sports Equipment

Public sports equipment is continuously exposed to outdoor environments and high-frequency use, and therefore faces multiple challenges including wear, corrosion, aging, and deterioration of safety performance. Conventional passive protective coatings are increasingly unable to meet the combined requirements of safety, functionality, and durability in modern public sports facilities. Dynamic-responsive coatings, a new class of functional materials capable of intelligent responses to external stimuli such as mechanical force, temperature, humidity, and light, provide a transformative technical route for overcoming these limitations. This review systematically summarizes the classification, working mechanisms, and application progress of dynamic-responsive coatings in public sports equipment, with particular emphasis on eight representative coating systems: self-healing coatings, color-changing coatings, superhydrophobic coatings, intelligent anticorrosion coatings, wear-resistant dynamic coatings, temperature-responsive coatings, photocatalytic self-cleaning coatings, and bio-based degradable coatings. Their material design, fabrication strategies, failure mechanisms, and safety evaluation are further discussed. On this basis, the key technical bottlenecks and future directions associated with the transition from passive protection to active adaptation are analyzed, with the aim of providing a theoretical basis and technical reference for improving the safety and intelligent management of public sports facilities.