*Advanced Functional Materials*

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**215**

**Chapter 13**

**Abstract**

Materials

Exploits, Advances and Challenges

in Characterizing Self-Healing

Characterization is an indispensable tool for understanding the structure– property-processing relationship in all material classes. However, challenges in selfhealing materials characterization arise from the preparation routes, material types, damage mechanism and applications. Here, the discourse surveys the exploits, advances and challenges encountered within various characterization methods that have been exploited to reveal the damage-restoring processes in some material classes, namely metals, polymers, ceramics, concretes and coatings. Since there is no unified characterization procedure for the different classes of materials displaying self-repairing capabilities, the outcome of this discourse contributes to the advancement of knowledge about understanding self-healing testing procedures. An overview of methods, challenges and prospects toward self-healing property

*Camillus Sunday Obayi and Paul Sunday Nnamchi*

standardization at different length scales has been discussed.

test standardization, self-healing materials

induced by its service environment [1, 2].

**1. Introduction**

**Keywords:** material characterization, properties, processing, challenges,

Characterization is a vital tool in elucidating the characteristics of material systems and ascertaining their suitability for various applications. Characterization is also an indispensable technique for quantifying self-repairing capabilities of various material classes. A self-healing material is a material designed to mimic nature, self-repair and restore its partial or original characteristics, thereby prolonging its service life like a biological system after encountering some form of damage

Developing a man-made material capable of sensing and self-repairing in response to changes in the operating environment is a challenging task. This is because it takes a great exploit to design and process a synthetic material to mimic very closely the nature-designed mechanism of self-repair obtained in complex biological architectures. Numerous design approaches and preparatory routes have been attempted by research community to create self-healing abilities in different material classes for many applications. The material classes exploited so far include

Another huge task is quantifying the material's capability to self-repair and its suitability for a specific application via characterization techniques.

polymers, metals, ceramics, cements, coatings and composites [3].
