Bioinspired Designs of Active and Dynamic Soft Materials
Zhibin Guan
Professor
Chemical Biology, Organic and Synthetic, Polymer, Materials, Nanoscience
University of California Irvine
![](https://www.chem.uci.edu/sites/default/files/DSC_2599_Zhibin_Guan_Web_0.jpg)
Abstract
Many biopolymers not only have advanced mechanical properties such as high modulus, toughness, and elasticity, but more importantly, exhibit dynamic characteristics including adaptive, malleable, and self-healing properties. Following inspirations from the Nature, Guan lab has developed various biomimetic soft materials imbued with active and dynamic properties. In one system, we have designed a series of biomimetic modular polymers with folded nano-domains as the repeat units. In another example, we have developed strong and autonomous self-healing polymers using various supramolecular and dynamic covalent interactions. In contrast to previous designs, our system spontaneously self-heals as a single-component solid at ambient conditions without the need of any external stimulus, healing agent, plasticizer, or solvent. Recently, we have also made significant progress in dissipative self-assembly of active materials. The overarching concept for all these projects is to build a direct link between microscopic molecular properties and macroscopic bulk performance. In this talk, I will discuss the design, synthesis, and property studies of these dynamic polymers including adaptive, active, and self-healing materials.