Issue 4, 2021

Empowering self-reporting polymer blends with orthogonal optical properties responsive in a broader force range

Abstract

Self-reporting polymers, which can indicate damage with perceptible optical signals in a tailored force range, are useful as stress-sensitive sensors. We demonstrate a simple approach to realize this function by embedding two distinct mechanophores — rhodamine (Rh) and bis(adamantyl)-1,2-dioxetane (Ad), in polyurethane/polylactic acid blends. The deformed blends generate red coloration and red chemiluminescence. Such a unique dual-responsive behavior was evaluated by solid-state UV-vis spectroscopy, macroscopic tensile tests with in situ RGB and light intensity analyses, which supported a stress-correlated occurrence of the ring-opening of Rh, the scission of Ad and the fluorescence resonance energy transfer process between the respective mechanochemical species. Complementarity stemming from the difference in properties and manifestations of the two mechanophores is essential. That is, the more labile Rh allows shifting the appreciable optical changes to a much lower force threshold; the transient nature and high dynamic range of mechanochemiluminescence from Ad map in real time where and when many of the covalently incorporated dioxetane bonds break; besides, the disrupted yet non-scissile structure of Rh acts as a fluorescent acceptor to effectively harvest chemiluminescence from ruptured Ad. The current strategy is thus empowering multi-functional mechano-responsive polymers with greatly improved sensitivity and resolution for multimodal stress reporting.

Graphical abstract: Empowering self-reporting polymer blends with orthogonal optical properties responsive in a broader force range

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
08 Nov 2020
Accepted
24 Nov 2020
First published
08 Dec 2020
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2021,12, 1245-1250

Empowering self-reporting polymer blends with orthogonal optical properties responsive in a broader force range

M. Wu, Z. Guo, W. He, W. Yuan and Y. Chen, Chem. Sci., 2021, 12, 1245 DOI: 10.1039/D0SC06140A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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