Response of photonic crystal hydrogels to carbohydrate and polyhydroxy alcohols

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reactfunctpolym.2020.104504Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Inverse opal hydrogel IOHGHEMA+3APBA film is successfully prepared.

  • The IOHGHEMA+3APBA film occupies band gap in the visible light region.

  • Its λmax changes in response to carbohydrate and polyhydroxy alcohols.

Abstract

Inverse opal hydrogel films composed of hydroxyethyl 2-methacrylate and phenylboronic acid (IOHGHEMA+3APBA) were prepared by a convenient ultrasonic-induced self-assembly method. The IOHGHEMA+3APBA films had brilliant blue-violet color when they were immersed in deionized water and reached swelling equilibrium. The IOHGHEMA+3APBA films were used as sensors to detect chemicals with similar structures. When the IOHGHEMA+3APBA films were in contact with different monosaccharide, polysaccharide or polyhydric alcohol solutions, their reflection peaks maxima (λmax) shifted over the entire visible wavelength range (520 to 780 nm). The red shift of λmax was related to the number of effective hydroxyl groups and the molecular size of the detected molecules. Thus isomers or organic compounds with similar structures or properties may induce different λmax shifts of the IOHGHEMA+3APBA films.

Graphical abstract

Inverse opal hydrogel IOHGHEMA+3APBA films with band gap in the visible light region were prepared and showed response to carbohydrate and polyhydroxy alcohols.

Unlabelled Image
  1. Download : Download high-res image (123KB)
  2. Download : Download full-size image

Introduction

Photonic crystals (PCs) are substances whose dielectric constants (or refractive indexes) have cyclical changes [[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]] and they can have energy band structures called photonic band gap (PBGs) [[7], [8], [9], [10], [11]]. As an electromagnetic wave propagates through a photonic crystal it is modulated because of Bragg diffraction [[12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17]]. If the energy of the electromagnetic wave matches that of the PBG, it will be subject to a repressive effect and it cannot be propagated and reflected back [[18], [19], [20], [21], [22]]. When the PBG is in visible light region, the PC displays a structural color which can be seen by the naked eye [[23], [24], [25], [26], [27]]. Due to the presence of PBG, it can be modulated to control the photon spread [[28], [29], [30], [31]]. These modifications have great value for applications in optical fiber communication, microwave devices, optical switches and filters, and sensors.

Using PC as sensors is based on the Bragg's law and the Bragg diffraction peak or reflection peak maximum (λmax) is related to the refractive index of the material and the lattice spacing of PC [32,33]. Usually, stimuli-responsive PCs are used as sensors because their λmax values are sensitive to chemicals or external physical environmental changes. If the PBG of a PC is in the visible light region, it can be utilized in colorimetric sensing like a pH indicator strip [34]. The key challenge for fabricating stimuli-responsive PCs is the integration of responsive functionalities into the PC. This is typically accomplished by intigrating molecular imprint, functional groups, functional materials or responsive hydrogels into PC structure [[35], [36], [37], [38]].

PC hydrogels are even more popular and versatile because hydrogels have high swelling or contacting ability so the lattice spacing of PC dramatically changes and subsequently induce shift of λmax. In addition, the composition of hydrogels can be easily adjusted so as to response (or detect) to different targets. Stimuli-responsive PC has been used to detect chemicals (gas, ions, organics and biological molecules etc) or physical environment (pressure, temperature and light etc) [32,33,[39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44]]. These stimuli-responsive PC are reusable and convenient detection device that can meet the basic requirements of good detectors or sensors. Asher first developed a PCCA (polymer hydrogel with an embedded crystalline colloidal array (CCA)) sensor to detect chemicals including the glucose [45,46]. After that, detection of glucose using stimuli-responsive PC has been extensive studied [[47], [48], [49], [50]]. However, most of the detection based on the responsive inverse opal hydrogels is focused on a specific substance like glucose and lacks a systematic study and comparison for a class of substances [51]. Lee analyzed optical diffraction response of glucose-sensitive inverse opal hydrogels [52], Zhang fabricated linear and fast hydrogel glucose sensor materials enabled by volume resetting agents [53] and discussed the effects of phenylboronic acid chemical structure on response of hydrogel-based glucose sensors [54], Xue et al. has fabricated a covalently imprinted photonic crystal for glucose sensing [55], Hu et al. developed near-infrared photonic crystal glucose-sensing materials for ratiometric sensing of glucose [56].

In this paper, by attaching phenylboronic acid, a functional group that can bind to carbohydrates, and polyhydroxy alcohol to photonic crystals, we achieve detection of hydroxyl containing organics. The inverse opal hydrogel film composed of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and 3-acrylamidophenylboronic acid (3APBA) (IOHGHEMA+3APBA) was successfully prepared by convenient ultrasonic-induced self-assembly (for forming colloid crystal as template) and in situ polymerization of monomers within the template. The responsiveness of the IOHGHEMA+3APBA film to monosaccharides, polysaccharides or polyhydric alcohols was studied by using λmax of the IOHGHEMA+3APBA in the visible region in order to investigate selectivity of hydroxyl containing organic compounds with similar structure.

Section snippets

Materials

The monomers 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), N-cyclohexyl-2-aminoethanesulfonic acid (CHES) and 3-acrylamidophenylboronic acid (3APBA) were purchased from Beijing J & K Technology Co. Ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) and 4, 4′- azobis (4-cyanovaleric acid) were from Aladdin-reagent (Shanghai) Co. and Tianjin Heowns Biochemical Technology Co., rspectively. Sodium chloride, sodium hydroxide, D-arabinose, D-xylose, d-ribose, anhydrous glucose, D-mannose, d-fructose, D-raffinose, sucrose,

PS opal and IOHGHEMA+3APBA films

The PS opal template was prepared by ultrasonic-induced self-assembly. PS colloids in the opal template are arranged orderly in three-dimension (Fig. 2a), so the opal template shows a maximum reflection peak (λmax) at 507 nm (Fig. 2b), which is consistent with the λmax value of 503 nm from calculation with the modified Bragg equation. The IOHGHEMA+3APBA film was prepared by filling the monomer/ initiator mixture solution into the PS opal template induced by capillary force, in situ polymerizing

Conclusions

The IOHGHEMA+3APBA film with a stable three dimensional structure has been successfully prepared by a self-assembly and in situ polymerization method. The IOHGHEMA+3APBA film is responsive to alicyclic alcohols (hexose and pentose), yellow dextrin and aliphatic alcohols. The redshift degree of λmax of the IOHGHEMA+3APBA film is related to the number of effective hydroxyl groups and molecular size and shows some change trends. Thus isomers or organic compounds with similar structures or

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.

References (61)

  • L. Zhang et al.

    Layer-by-layer approach to (2+1) D photonic crystal superlattice with enhanced crystalline integrity

    Small

    (2015)
  • M. Schaffner et al.

    Combining bottom-up self-assembly with top-down microfabrication to create hierarchical inverse opals with high structural order

    Small

    (2015)
  • Z. Pan et al.

    Response of inverse-opal hydrogels to alcohols

    J. Mater. Chem.

    (2012)
  • M.C. Wanke et al.

    Laser rapid prototyping of photonic band-gap microstructures

    Science

    (1997)
  • M. Campbell et al.

    Fabrication of photonic crystals for the visible spectrum by holographic lithography

    Nature

    (2000)
  • S. Shoji et al.

    Photofabrication of three-dimensional photonic crystals by multibeam laser interference into a photopolymerizable resin

    Appl. Phys. Lett.

    (2000)
  • M. Chen et al.

    Photonic crystals with a reversibly inducible and erasable defect state using external stimuli

    Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.

    (2015)
  • C.G. Schäfer et al.

    Smart polymer inverse-opal photonic crystal films by melt-shear organization for hybrid core-shell architectures

    J. Mater. Chem. C

    (2015)
  • C.G. Schäfer et al.

    Utilizing stretch-tunable thermochromic elastomeric opal films as novel reversible switchable photonic materials

    Macromol. Rapid Commun.

    (2014)
  • R.C. Schroden et al.

    Optical properties of inverse opal photonic crystals

    Chem. Mater.

    (2002)
  • L. González-Urbina et al.

    Linear and nonlinear optical properties of colloidal photonic crystals

    Chem. Rev.

    (2012)
  • K.R. Phillips et al.

    A colloidoscope of colloid-based porous materials and their uses

    Chem. Soc. Rev.

    (2016)
  • I.B. Burgess et al.

    Encoding complex wettability patterns in chemically functionalized 3D photonic crystals

    J. Am. Chem. Soc.

    (2011)
  • E. Yablonoviteh et al.

    Hope for photonic band gaps

    Nature

    (1991)
  • E. Özbay et al.

    Measurement of a three-dimensional photonic band gap in a crystal structure made of dielectric rods

    Phys. Rev. B

    (1994)
  • S.G. Johnson et al.

    Three-dimensionally periodic dielectric layered structure with omnidirectional photonic band gap

    Appl. Phys. Lett.

    (2000)
  • M.C. Wanke et al.

    Laser rapid prototyping of photonic band-gap microstructures

    Science

    (1997)
  • S.Y. Lin et al.

    A three-dimensional photonic crystal operating at infrared wavelengths

    Nature

    (1998)
  • O. Toader et al.

    Proposed square spiral microfabrication architecture for large three-dimensional photonic band gap crystals

    Science

    (2001)
  • O. Toader et al.

    Photonic band gap architectures for holographic lithography

    Phys. Rev. Lett.

    (2004)
  • Cited by (10)

    • Photonic crystal films with upconversion luminescence based on the self-assembly of polystyrene encapsulated NaYF<inf>4</inf>:Ln<sup>3+</sup> composite microspheres for dual-mode optical code

      2022, Reactive and Functional Polymers
      Citation Excerpt :

      The downconversion luminescent materials can be easily replaced by other phosphors due to their broad emission bands overlapping different materials, resulting in the security of optical code being reduced. As an alternative to downconversion fluorescent materials, photonic crystals (PCs) can perform bright, tunable, and fadeless structural colors as an easy-to-read optical state without the assistance of equipment [37–39]. By the introduction of functional materials, the PCs with the attribute of multi-information transmission are of great value to be applied in information encoding [40–42].

    • Microfluidic-directed magnetic controlling supraballs with multi-responsive anisotropic photonic crystal structures

      2021, Journal of Materials Science and Technology
      Citation Excerpt :

      Colloidal photonic crystals (CPCs) with periodically arranged structure and ordered tunable photon band gap have allured considerable research interests due to their potential applications in sensors [1–7], printings [8–10], displays [11–14], and other optical devices [15,16].

    • Preparation and Multiple Stimulus Responsiveness of Inverse Opal Hydrogel with Low Chemical Cross-Linking Degree

      2022, Gaofenzi Cailiao Kexue Yu Gongcheng/Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    1

    This author contributed equally to the work.

    View full text