Aromatic disulfide crosslinks in polymer systems: Self-healing, reprocessability, recyclability and more

This featured article brings together recent advances in the field of smart polymers systems which incorporate reversible crosslinks based on aromatic disulfides. The reversibility of aromatic disulfides has been extensively exploited in dynamic combinatorial chemistry, but until recently it has had limited echo in polymer chemistry. Very recently, the incorporation of aromatic disulfide bridges in polymer networks has endowed the development of materials with unprecedented functionalities. Examples of this are self-healing elastomers or epoxy vitrimer composites which show mechanochromic activity. This article provides the reader with a snapshot of our own journey from the roots of sulfur chemistry to the development of new materials.