Facile preparation of luminescent cellulose nanocrystals with aggregation-induced emission feature through Ce(IV) redox polymerization

Yi Cui; Hongye Huang; Meiying Liu; Junyu Chen; Fengjie Deng; Naigen Zhou; Xiaoyong Zhang; Yen Wei

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.115102

Facile preparation of luminescent cellulose nanocrystals with aggregation-induced emission feature through Ce(IV) redox polymerization

Carbohydr Polym. 2019 Nov 1:223:115102. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.115102. Epub 2019 Jul 17.

Authors

Yi Cui¹, Hongye Huang¹, Meiying Liu², Junyu Chen², Fengjie Deng², Naigen Zhou³, Xiaoyong Zhang⁴, Yen Wei⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330031, PR China; Department of Chemistry, Nanchang University, 999 Xuefu Avenue, Nanchang 330031, PR China.
² Department of Chemistry, Nanchang University, 999 Xuefu Avenue, Nanchang 330031, PR China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330031, PR China. Electronic address: ngzhou@ncu.edu.cn.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Nanchang University, 999 Xuefu Avenue, Nanchang 330031, PR China. Electronic address: zhangxiaoyong@ncu.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Chemistry and the Tsinghua Center for Frontier Polymer Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, PR China; Department of Chemistry and Center for Nanotechnology and Institute of Biomedical Technology, Chung-Yuan Christian University, Chung-Li 32023, Taiwan. Electronic address: weiyen@tsinghua.edu.cn.

PMID: 31426952
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.115102

Abstract

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are a novel type of natural nanomaterials that have attracted tremendous research interest for various applications especially in the biomedical fields owing to their natural origin, biodegradable potential, remarkable biocompatibility and massive reactive hydroxyl groups. In this work, a novel strategy has been developed for fabrication of luminescent CNCs with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) feature for the first time through a facile one-step Ce(IV) redox polymerization for direct surface grafting of AIE dye (PhE) and hydrophilic monomer Poly(ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether acrylate (PEGMA) on CNCs. Various characterization techniques would demonstrate the successful preparation of resultant CNC-PhE-PEGMA with uniform nanoscale size, remarkable fluorescent properties and extremely low cytotoxicity. Furthermore, compared with conventional modification strategy of CNCs, Ce(IV) redox polymerization only need moderate temperature and can operate in aqueous solution utilizing surface hydroxyl groups of CNCs as polymerization activity sites. More importantly, CNC-PhE-PEGMA show desirable fluorescent properties and can be used for cell dyeing, indicating their potential for biomedical applications.

Keywords: Aggregation-induced emission; Ce(IV) redox polymerization; Cellulose nanocrystals; Fluorescent composites; Surface-initiator polymerization.