Issue 11, 2021

Fluorescent, electrically responsive and ultratough self-healing hydrogels via bioinspired all-in-one hierarchical micelles

Abstract

Intelligent hydrogels that simultaneously exhibit excellent toughness, self-healing ability and photoelectronic responsiveness are in high demand but are greatly challenging to prepare. Inspired by the hierarchical structure of fluorescent proteins in jellyfish and biomembranes in nature, herein, a facile and universal all-in-one strategy is demonstrated to construct fluorescent, electrically responsive and ultratough self-healing hydrogels via aqueous self-assembly of polyelectrolyte–surfactant micelles with hierarchical structures and functionality. The self-assembled 2-ureido-4-[1H]-pyrimidone (UPy) hydrophobic core containing reversible physical crosslinks embedded in micelles leads to a durable network structure with excellent toughness and self-healing ability. Moreover, dramatically enhanced fluorescence emission is obtained due to the formation of nanoclusters with electron-rich moieties that show restricted intramolecular motion induced by hydrogen bonding networks from UPy dimer aggregation. The micelle-incorporated sulfonic acid groups mimic the function of biological membrane proteins that deftly control the micelle size, leading to electro-responsiveness, enhanced toughness and fluorescence emission.

Graphical abstract: Fluorescent, electrically responsive and ultratough self-healing hydrogels via bioinspired all-in-one hierarchical micelles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
24 srp 2021
Accepted
03 ruj 2021
First published
04 ruj 2021

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 3096-3104

Fluorescent, electrically responsive and ultratough self-healing hydrogels via bioinspired all-in-one hierarchical micelles

T. Liu, F. Wang, Q. Wu, T. Chen and P. Sun, Mater. Horiz., 2021, 8, 3096 DOI: 10.1039/D1MH01172C

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