How to Design a Self‐Healing Polymer: General Concepts of Dynamic Covalent Bonds and Their Application for Intrinsic Healable Materials

Abstract In this work, the fundamental design principles of intrinsic self‐healing, polymeric materials with reversible, covalent bonds are described and summarized. The most important properties with regard to the healing ability and potential applications are discussed. A classification of synthetic strategies toward polymers as well as polymer networks and their effect on the properties is given to gain further insight into known design strategies for healable materials. In order to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different covalent bonding types, recent examples of intrinsic healable polymers are compared and evaluated. In addition, the unique behavior of vitrimers as a new type of polymer networks is explained. In the end, a short outlook on future work in the field of self‐healing polymers concludes this review.