Mussel-Inspired Self-Healing of Ultralight Magnetic Frameworks

Ultralight materials have many important applications, but most of them are unable to spontaneously recover their microstructure and functions after physical damage or abuse. Here we report an ultralight magnetic framework that can repair its broken microstructure autonomously via a mussel-inspired strategy. The self-healable framework consists of three-dimensionally (3D) interconnected Fe3O4/C microtubes wrapped with nanoshells of nitrocatechol-substituted chitosan. The framework spontaneously recovers its configuration integrity and mechanical properties during all 6 breaking/healing cycles through pH-induced coordination between Fe3+ and catecholic moieties. On the basis of the self-healable property, the framework can even be tailored into complicated patterns. The investigation offers a strategy to fabricate multifunctional ultralight materials with a self-healable property and tailorability, which have potential applications in adsorption, energy-storage, and catalysis, and so on.