It
is very challenging to achieve polymers that are mechanically robust
and fast self-healable at ambient conditions, which are highly desirable
for smart materials of the next-generation. Herein, combining dynamic
ditelluride bonds and 2-ureido-4[1H]-pyrimidinone
(UPy) moieties in the main chains, a novel type of visible-light-induced
self-healing water-dispersed supramolecular polymers (DTe-WSPs) with
outstanding healing properties were developed. The prepared DTe-WSPs
emulsions showed excellent emulsion stability, and highly transparent
DTe-WSPs films obtained from these emulsions exhibited much improved
mechanical properties and fast recoverability after the incorporation
of UPy groups, owing to the physical cross-links formed by quadruple
hydrogen-bonded UPy moieties. Supertoughness (105.2 MJ m–3) and fast self-healability under visible light (healing efficiency
of 85.6% within 10 min) could be achieved simultaneously with the
adjustment of the ditelluride content and the UPy content, and the
toughness of our polymers is higher than those of the reported ambient
temperature self-healable polymers. The visible-light-induced ditelluride
metathesis is a predominant factor in the healing process of DTe-WSPs,
and the ditelluride metathesis triggered by photothermy and hydrogen
bonding could also afford the ultimate healing result. Meanwhile,
DTe-WSPs can be reprocessed using visible light, providing a facile
way to process polymers at mild conditions. To our surprise, the “living”
DTe-WSPs exhibited the ability to initiate the polymerization of vinyl
monomers under visible light, which is first reported for water-dispersed
self-healing polymers. We considered the elaborated design philosophy,
based on the readily available, clean, safe, and easily manipulated
visible light, which can not only provide inspiration for preparing
fast ambient temperature self-healing and reprocessing polymer materials
with robust mechanical properties but also develop a new macroinitiator
to initiate the ambient temperature polymerization of vinyl monomers.
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