Plasma dye coating as straightforward and widely applicable procedure for dye immobilization on polymeric materials

Lieselot De Smet,Peter Minshall,Iline Steyaert,Peter Dubruel,Richard Hoogenboom,Gertjan Vancoillie,Elke Van De Walle,Kathleen Lava,Karen De Clerck,Ella Schoolaert

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03583-4

Lieselot De Smet, Peter Minshall + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03583-4

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Journal: Nature Communications	Publication Date: Mar 16, 2018
Citations: 29	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Ghent University

Abstract

Here, we introduce a novel concept for the fabrication of colored materials with significantly reduced dye leaching through covalent immobilization of the desired dye using plasma-generated surface radicals. This plasma dye coating (PDC) procedure immobilizes a pre-adsorbed layer of a dye functionalized with a radical sensitive group on the surface through radical addition caused by a short plasma treatment. The non-specific nature of the plasma-generated surface radicals allows for a wide variety of dyes including azobenzenes and sulfonphthaleins, functionalized with radical sensitive groups to avoid significant dye degradation, to be combined with various materials including PP, PE, PA6, cellulose, and PTFE. The wide applicability, low consumption of dye, relatively short procedure time, and the possibility of continuous PDC using an atmospheric plasma reactor make this procedure economically interesting for various applications ranging from simple coloring of a material to the fabrication of chromic sensor fabrics as demonstrated by preparing a range of halochromic materials.

Highlights

We introduce a novel concept for the fabrication of colored materials with significantly reduced dye leaching through covalent immobilization of the desired dye using plasmagenerated surface radicals
We report the development and optimization of the plasma dye coating (PDC) procedure, a simple method that employs the use of a plasma depositing technique to covalently immobilize pre-absorbed dyes that are functionalized with a radical sensitive group
The so-called PDC procedure consists of three simple steps (Fig. 2): (1) the material is dipped in a solution of the desired polymerizable dye in a volatile solvent like ethanol or THF to allow a homogenous adsorption of the dye on the material surface

Summary

Introduction

We introduce a novel concept for the fabrication of colored materials with significantly reduced dye leaching through covalent immobilization of the desired dye using plasmagenerated surface radicals. The most common approach to reduce the dye leaching and to increase the long-term sensitivity and stability of the sensor is the addition of a polymeric fixating agent like Perfixan® This polycation is used to immobilize anionically charged dyes through electrostatic interactions[13,22,23]. In the pre-fabrication pathway, the dye immobilization is achieved through the functionalization of a precursor polymer with the desired dye after which the dyefunctionalized polymer is introduced into the feed-mixture of the fabrication process This allows for the production of homogenously colored materials in which the dye is strongly held in the bulk of the material through polymer–polymer entanglements resulting in significantly reduced dye leaching. The main disadvantage to this approach is the large scale and sometimes difficult modification of the dye especially for the more interesting and complex dye molecules

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Results

Conclusion