In the last few decades, self-healing polymeric materials have been widely investigated because they can heal the damages spontaneously and thereby prolong their service lifetime. Many ingenious synthetic procedures have been developed for fabricating self-healing polymers with high performance. This mini review provides an impressive summary of the self-healing polymers with fast self-healing speed, which exhibits an irreplaceable role in many intriguing applications, such as flexible electronics. After a brief introduction to the development of self-healing polymers, we divide the development of self-healing polymers into five stages through the perspective of their research priorities at different periods. Subsequently, we elaborated the underlying healing mechanism of polymers, including the self-healing origins, the influencing factors, and direct evidence of healing at nanoscopic level. Following this, recent advance in realizing the fast self-healing speed of polymers through physical and chemical approaches is extensively overviewed. In particular, the methodology for balancing the mechanical strength and healing ability in fast self-healing elastomers is summarized. We hope that it could afford useful information for research people in promoting the further technical development of new strategies and technologies to prepare the high performance self-healing elastomers for advanced applications.

Fully bio‐based ion‐conductive organo‐hydrogels with multi‐functionalities such as high mechanical properties, self‐healing, anti‐freezing, and non‐drying capabilities are still extremely rare so far, and achieving it remains a great challenge. In this work, a starch/natural rubber composite hydrogel is first obtained by a simple one‐pot method, and then an ion‐conductive organo‐hydrogel composed of starch, natural rubber, lithium chloride, and glycerol with adjustable mechanical properties (ultimate tensile stress of 0.15–2.33 MPa with a failure strain of 675–1367%, elastic modulus of 0.087–15.2 MPa) is fabricated by a solvent replacement strategy. The organo‐hydrogels exhibit excellent fatigue resistance, elasticity, and good self‐healing, anti‐freezing, non‐drying properties (with no obvious change after 10 days at ambient environment). The obtained hydrogels are successfully applied to monitor human movement with high durability (over 1000 cycles) and low hysteresis. In addition, the sensors exhibit high stability in a wide temperature range from −20 °C to 100 °C that endows it with a wide range of potential applications in flexible sensing and wearable devices.

Neurovascularized bone regeneration remains an enormous challenge in the clinic.