Polydopamine-Based 3D Colloidal Photonic Materials: Structural Color Balls and Fibers from Melanin-Like Particles with Polydopamine Shell Layers

Abstract

Nature creates beautiful structural colors, and some of these colors are produced by nanostructural arrays of melanin. Polydopamine (PDA), an artificial black polymer produced by self-oxidative polymerization of dopamine, has attracted extensive attention because of its unique properties. PDA is a melanin-like material, and recent studies have reported that photonic materials based on PDA particles showed structural colors by enhancing color saturation through the absorption of scattered light. Herein, we describe the preparation of three-dimensional (3D) colloidal photonic materials, such as structural color balls and fibers, from biomimetic core-shell particles with melanin-like PDA shell layers. Structural color balls were prepared through the combined use of membrane emulsion and heating. We also demonstrated the use of microfluidic emulsification and solvent diffusion for the fabrication of structural color fibers. The obtained 3D colloidal materials, i.e., balls and fibers, exhibited angle-independent structural colors due to the amorphous assembly of PDA-containing particles. These findings provide new insight for the development of dye-free technology for the coloration of various 3D colloidal architectures.

Flow synthesis of monodisperse micron-sized polymer particles by heterogeneous polymerization using a water-in-oil slug flow with a non-ionic surfactant

“…Polymer particles with a narrow size distribution have been used in various industrial applications including inks, paintings, adhesives, liquid crystals spacers, materials for structural colors [1,2], and photonic crystals [3]. These particles have been generally prepared by heterogeneous polymerization such as emulsion polymerization [4], soapfree emulsion polymerization [5], suspension polymerization [6], and dispersion polymerization [7].…”

Progress in polydopamine-based melanin mimetic materials for structural color generation

“…A spherical photonic material with a three-dimensional structure constructed from colloidal particles is expected to have use as a structurally colored pigment, and many attempts have been made to achieve this application [104][105][106][107][108]. Our group demonstrated the fabrication of spherical photonic materials by the membrane emulsification method, utilizing the property that PS@PDA particles were well dispersed in water [109]. After making a monodisperse water-inoil (W/O) emulsion containing PS@PDA particles and evaporating the solvent, a spherical photonic material was obtained, which showed structural color even when dispersed in the…”

Colloidal Crystals from Microfluidics

“…Colloidal crystal fibers have bright and nonfading structural colors, thus showing broad research prospects in display, antifake, sensing etc. Up to date, the preparation of colloidal crystal fibers by microfluidic technology has attracted much attention . Zhang and coworkers systematically studied the structures of polystyrene colloidal particles with PVA by means of colloidal electrospinning ( Figure a) .…”