Fluorescent spider silks-like alginate fibers gaining humidity-enhanced mechanical properties via molecular design

• Key Words:CALCIUM ALGINATE; STRENGTH; TOUGHNESS; CONFLICTS
• Abstract:Fluorescent high performance biomaterials are highly desired in biological and biomedical areas. However, it remains a great challenge to impart artificial fibers with both fluorescence and spider silks-like mechanical performance. Herein, a molecular designing strategy for fabricating fluorescent high performance fibers is developed with using natural alginate and a designed tetraphenylethene-containing ammonium surfactant with multiple structural elements. Through creating an ionic structure between anionic alginate as the rigid part and cationic surfactant as the flexible cross-linker, the resulting cohesive network leads to the fibers with extraordinary mechanics, giving strength of 1.26 GPa and toughness of 231.98 MJ/m3, which could be further enhanced to be 1.51 GPa and 354.06 MJ/m3 under humid conditions. The outstanding strength and toughness bring remarkable static and dynamic impacting resistance properties for the fibers, contributing to a better performance than commercial surgical sutures in our biomechanical tests. Additionally, the fibers also possess fluorescence for easy detection, excellent biocompatibility, insulation and tolerance to extreme conditions, largely widening their application scenarios in biological and biomedical areas. This study affords a facile strategy for gaining high performance materials with combining multiple physicochemical properties together and the ability of working in highly-humid condition.
• Volume:518
• Issue:
• Translation or Not:no