Biomimetic Materials with Multiple Protective Functionalities

Natural tissues possess superior material properties such as self-healing, mechanical robustness, and mechanical gradients that allow organisms to adapt and survive in dangerous environments. Although highly desired, imparting synthetic materials with these biomimetic protective features remains a challenge. Here, the versatile dimethylglyoxime–urethane (DOU) moiety is used to create a multifunctional polyurethane (DOU-PU). The reactivities of DOU including reversible dissociation, metal coordination, photolysis enabled self-healing, high strength and toughness, mechanical gradient formation, and spatially controlled functionalization. By incorporating DOU, a multifunctional protective film is produced with superior resistance to mechanical damage, rapid room temperature self-healing, and anti-counterfeiting features. This super biomimetic film is expected to be very useful for the protection of various types of valuable objects such as electronics, diplomas, currency, and automobiles.