Research progress in bio-based self-healing materials

Abstract With the fossil resource exhausting and oil price rising, the development of substitutes for petroleum-based polymers with bio-based polymers is becoming important. This review summarizes research progress in bio-based self-healing materials developed over the past several decades and evaluates the role of biomass playing. The concepts and the main self-healing mechanisms among the biomass self-healing materials and fabrication techniques are firstly summarized, and the self-healing performances of the materials are described in detail. Then, the applications of bio-based self-healing materials (e.g., sensors, energy storage devices, biomaterials and so on) were briefly introduced. Finally, the existing challenges and promising solutions of bio-based self-healing materials are discussed.