Nanowerk  August 24, 2022 As it is difficult to determine whether the currently used polymeric coatings applied to the surfaces of automobiles, ships, etc. to protect them from the external environment are already damaged or not, these non-reusable coatings must be regularly replaced, leading to a large amount of waste generation and high disposal costs. Researchers in South Korea have demonstrated mechanochromic and thermally reprocessable thermosets that can be used for autonomic damage reporting and self-healing coatings. A mechanochromic molecule, spiropyran (SP), was covalently incorporated into thermoreversible Diels–Alder (DA) cross-linking networks. Mechanical activation of SPs in DA networks was confirmed […]