Lanthanoids Goes Healing: Lanthanoidic Metallopolymers and Their Scratch Closure Behavior

Metallopolymers represent an interesting combination of inorganic metal complexes and polymers resulting in a variety of outstanding properties and applications. One field of interest are stimuli-responsive materials and, in particular, self-healing polymers. These systems could be achieved by the incorporation of terpyridine–lanthanoid complexes of Eu (III), Tb (III), and Dy (III) in the side chains of well-defined copolymers, which were prepared applying the reversible addition fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT)-polymerization technique. The metal complexes crosslink the polymer chains in order to form reversible supramolecular networks. These dynamics enable the self-healing behavior. The information on composition, reversibility, and stability of the complexes was obtained by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). Moreover, self-healing experiments were performed by using 3D-microscopy and indentation.