Dynamic siloxane materials: From molecular engineering to emerging applications

The exceptional physicochemical and mechanical properties have enabled siloxane-based materials a wide range of applications in daily life and industry. With the rapid progress of emerging technologies requiring high-performance polymeric materials, the inherent characteristics of traditional silicones led them to insufficient mechanical toughness, poor interfacial adhesion, and lacking recyclability. Such problems have recently been tackled by the implementation of a dynamic design into siloxane-based materials. Based on diverse non-covalent interactions and dynamic covalent bonds, the derived dynamic siloxane materials show reasonable mechanical tunability, high interfacial bonding, stimuli-responsiveness, self-healing ability, and reprocessability. Here, recent advances that highlight issues relating to the necessity-driven molecular engineering of dynamic siloxane materials for emerging engineering applications are reviewed. Specifically, the molecular structures of dynamic polysiloxanes are summarized to emphasize their effect on regulating the materials performance. Whereafter examples of the application of dynamic siloxane materials are given in diverse fields from energy and electronic devices, actuators to antifouling surfaces. Finally, the promising developments and facing challenges of dynamic siloxane materials are proposed.