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 jul 2021
Accepted
03 set 2021
First published
04 set 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

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements