Issue 15, 2023

Upcycling waste expanded polystyrene into UV-excited dual-mode multicolor luminescent electrospun fiber membranes for advanced anti-counterfeiting

Abstract

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is causing severe environmental problems due to its high consumption and non-biodegradability. Upcycling waste EPS into high value-added functional materials is highly advisable in terms of sustainability and environmental concerns. Meanwhile, it is imperative to develop new anti-counterfeiting materials with high security against increasingly high-tech counterfeiting. Developing UV-excited dual-mode luminescent advanced anti-counterfeiting materials that can be excited by commonly used commercial UV light sources (such as 254 nm and 365 nm wavelengths) remains a challenge. Herein, UV-excited dual-mode multicolor luminescent electrospun fiber membranes were fabricated from waste EPS by co-doping with a Eu3+ complex and a Tb3+ complex via electrospinning. The SEM results prove that the lanthanide complexes are uniformly dispersed in the PS matrix. The luminescence analysis results suggest that all the as-prepared fiber membranes with the different mass ratios of the two complexes can exhibit the characteristic emission of Eu3+ ions and Tb3+ ions under UV light excitation. The corresponding fiber membrane samples can exhibit intense visible luminescence with different colors under UV lights. Moreover, each membrane sample can display different color luminescence irradiated with UV light at 254 nm and 365 nm, respectively, e.g. show excellent UV-excited dual-mode luminescent properties. This is owing to the different UV absorption properties of the two lanthanide complexes doped in the fiber membrane. Finally, the fiber membranes with different color luminescence from green light to red light were achieved by tuning the mass ratio of the two complexes in the PS matrix and changing UV irradiation wavelengths. The as-prepared fiber membranes with tunable multicolor luminescence are very promising for high-level anti-counterfeiting applications. This work is very meaningful not only to upcycle waste EPS to high value-added functional products but also to develop advanced anti-counterfeiting materials.

Graphical abstract: Upcycling waste expanded polystyrene into UV-excited dual-mode multicolor luminescent electrospun fiber membranes for advanced anti-counterfeiting

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 1月 2023
Accepted
23 3月 2023
First published
30 3月 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2023,13, 10123-10134

Upcycling waste expanded polystyrene into UV-excited dual-mode multicolor luminescent electrospun fiber membranes for advanced anti-counterfeiting

Y. Fan, H. Su, P. Li, M. Lin, D. Liu, K. Pei and X. Cao, RSC Adv., 2023, 13, 10123 DOI: 10.1039/D3RA00509G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, 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 commercial 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