Transient materials from hypersensitive ionic polymer fibers

Materials endowed with high strength and modulus, strong fatigue resistance and tolerance, and long service life, are always the goal we are striving for. However, in many situations, the materials are supposed to rapidly disappear unlike degradable polymers, and from this produces a series of significant changes in structure and properties, acquiring extraordinary application requirements. Herein, we develop a strategy to establish a generalized platform of transient materials via the electrospinning of ionic copolymers. The design allows these transient polymer fibers to disappear transiently with the transient efficiency in the range from 0.037 to 0.18 mg s−1. The transient fibers exhibit robust self-repairability where the repaired possesses increased tensile modulus (81 MPa) and can load a weight that is 16,000 times its own weight, transient adhesion (4-fold shear strength as much as commercial double-sided adhesive) which can realize the debonding via the ultrasound in the water, early warning (high response rates from 0.0025 s−1 to 0.025 s−1), and fiber-orientation movement (model prediction). We expect that our strategy can give access to the general and promising theory and application system of transient materials.