White-light-emitting hydrogels with self-healing properties and adjustable emission colors

Abstract

White-light-emitting soft materials with self-healing properties show extensive applications in many fields. Herein, a novel self-healing hydrogel is successfully fabricated using oxidized dextran (Odex) and dithiodipropionate dihydrazide (TPH). Carbon dots (CDs), Riboflavin (Ri) and Rhodamine B (RhB) are incorporated into the gel matrix to produce white light emission through fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) process, thus achieving excellent Commission Internationale de L’eclairage (CIE) coordinate value of (0.30, 0.33). The emission colors can be easily tuned via changing proportions of three emitters or the excitation wavelength. When the hydrogels are coated on an ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (UV LED), the hydrogel coating converts UV light to white light and repairs itself in 20 h while a hole is dug from it. Thanks to reversible exchanging reactions of acylhydrazone and disulfide bonds in hydrogel networks, the hydrogel coating exhibits perfect self-healing property in a wide range of pH (from 5 to 9 except for 7). The excellent emission and self-healing properties of hydrogels have great value in practical applications.