Metal Coordination Polyurethanes

Metal coordination polyurethanes (MCP) are the aggregates of metal-polyurethane complexes that form between a zero-dimensional metal ion or ionic cluster center with the surrounding array of one-dimension ligand polyurethanes (PU). Those metal-polyurethane complexes exhibit interesting physical characteristics, including thermoplasticity, elasticity, electrical conductivity, fluorescence, etc. The coordination interactions between metal ions and PU lead to formation of supramolecular aggregates, which endow the PU with advanced functionalities at high structural hierarchies across disciplinary boundaries such as self-repair, memory, antibacterial, luminescent. and so on. The orthogonal metal-polymer self-assembly is an ongoing theme in coordination chemistry, and thus brings MCP widely attention from various research areas in recent years. However, there has been not yet a review on this related topic of MCP. Herein. this review summarizes the ways and methods of the interaction between PU and metals from the molecular compositions and structures, and provides a comprehensive discussion on the coordination structures, as well as the related properties and applications. Finally, the prospective on the future development and application of MCP is presented.