Self-healing deep-blue afterglow hydrogel

Abstract

Achieving self-healing afterglow materials especially with deep-blue emissions is attractive and important but rarely reported owing to its difficulty in the acquisition of deep-blue afterglow systems in aqueous solution via populating and stabilizing the high-lying triplet excited state simultaneously. Here, a simple and environmental strategy was reported to realize deep-blue afterglow phenomenon with long lifetime of 1256 ms, high quantum efficiency of 39.23% and good stability in aqueous environment for a long time (>150 day) through encapsulating 4-carboxyphenylboronic acid (4-CPB) into the pores of zeolite Y (ZY) using solvent-free milling method. Experimental and theoretical results clear that the achievement of deep-blue afterglow emission in the aqueous environment is due to the formation of hydrogen bonds between the host and guest leading to an increase in the degree of electron delocalization and the collapse of the zeolite pores caused by grinding leading to a decrease in micropores number, which protects the luminescent groups. Benefiting from these excellent properties of luminescent materials, self-healing deep-blue afterglow hydrogel were prepared through doping them into poly (2-acrylamide-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid) (PAMPS) to demonstrate the application of LEDs. These results provide important foundation for the development of high-efficient deep-blue afterglow materials with remarkable applications.