Staudinger established a century ago the existence of covalent macromolecules, work that led to the development of transformative materials of great benefit to society and a “quantum leap” in our understanding of biological systems. Over the past few decades the concept of supramolecular polymers has emerged–chemical systems in which structural units bond strongly to each other non‐covalently. These dynamic systems actually exist in the natural world and can create soft materials with structures, properties, and functions beyond the ones we know in Staudinger polymers. We reflect here on the potential of novel systems in which covalent and supramolecular polymers are chemically integrated and describe them as hybrid bonding polymers. This paper describes the concept with recent examples from the Stupp laboratory, and discusses their potential functions as robotic materials that mimic living matter and structures that offer new ideas on how to recycle and reuse soft materials.

中文翻译：

---

超分子和杂化键聚合物

施陶丁格在一个世纪以前就建立了共价大分子的存在，这种工作导致了对社会具有极大益处的转化材料的发展，并使我们对生物系统的理解发生了“量子飞跃”。在过去的几十年中，出现了超分子聚合物的概念-化学体系，其中结构单元之间非共价键牢固地结合在一起。这些动态系统实际上存在于自然界中，可以制造出结构，特性和功能超出我们在Staudinger聚合物中已知的结构的柔软材料。我们在这里反映了将共价和超分子聚合物化学结合的新型系统的潜力，并将其描述为杂化键聚合物。本文通过Stupp实验室的最新示例对这一概念进行了描述，并讨论了它们作为模仿生活物质的机器人材料和结构的潜在功能，这些结构为如何回收利用软材料提供了新的思路。