Abstract
There is an increasing demand for transient materials with a predefined lifetime like self-erasing temporary electronic circuits or transient biomedical implants. Chemically fueled materials are an example of such materials; they emerge in response to chemical fuel, and autonomously decay as they deplete it. However, these materials suffer from a slow, typically first order decay profile. That means that over the course of the material's lifetime, its properties continuously change until it is fully decayed. Materials that have a sharp on–off response are self-immolative ones. These degrade rapidly after an external trigger through a self-amplifying decay mechanism. However, self-immolative materials are not autonomous; they require a trigger. We introduce here materials with the best of both, i.e., materials based on chemically fueled emulsions that are also self-immolative. The material has a lifetime that can be predefined, after which it autonomously and rapidly degrades. We showcase the new material class with self-expiring labels and drug-delivery platforms with a controllable burst-release.
Highlights
Transient materials retain their function over a de ned period and dissolve or resorb when their task is ful lled.[1]
These materials are regulated by a fueldriven chemical reaction cycle, i.e., in the cycle, building blocks for the materials are activated at the expense of chemical fuel, and the building blocks spontaneously deactivate
The anhydride phase separates into micron-sized oil droplets, which results in the formation of a turbid emulsion.10a,10b,10d As the anhydride deactivates, the total droplet material does too, resulting in a decrease in turbidity until a transparent solution is obtained (Fig. 1B)
Summary
Transient materials retain their function over a de ned period and dissolve or resorb when their task is ful lled.[1] They are powerful in medicine, i.e., as a scaffold that aids the body to regenerate lost tissue or as a delivery system for therapeutics.[2] They have gained popularity in electronics as temporary circuits that disintegrate a er a prede ned time.[1,3] These materials degrade by a range of structure-dependent biodegradation processes.[4] A different approach for the generation and degradation of transient materials is through chemically fueled materials These materials are regulated by a fueldriven chemical reaction cycle, i.e., in the cycle, building blocks for the materials are activated at the expense of chemical fuel, and the building blocks spontaneously deactivate. Such a constant decay pro le can be disadvantageous for applications that require a fast on-off response, i.e., materials in which the period of Scheme 1 Schematic representations of a chemically fueled material (A), a self-immolative material (B), and a combined material (C) with their respective evolutions of material properties
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