Flexible ammonium surfactants cross-linked alginate fibers with fluorescence, high mechanical performances, acid-resistance and wide temperature tolerance

Abstract

The combination of multiple physical properties is of great importance for the development of high performance biomaterials. It is remaining a challenge to fabricate polysaccharides-based fibers with simultaneously gaining high strength, high toughness and fluorescence. In this work, a type of high performance fibers (Alg-TPEA) is designed by ionically complexing natural alginate with a tetraphenylethene-containing surfactant (TPEA). Working as flexible contact points, TPEA could efficiently cross-link the polysaccharide chains of alginate, which creates a cohesive network for improving the plastic strain performance of fibers, leading to Alg-TPEA fibers with breaking strength of 900.05 MPa and toughness of 72.50 MJ m⁻³. A joint use of other flexible surfactants could further improve the toughness to 118.20 MJ m⁻³. Alg-TPEA fibers exhibit strong tolerance to extreme conditions and strong resistance to static and dynamic impacts. The fluorescence property of Alg-TPEA fibers would facilitate some fine operations by giving easy detection. This work provides a new synthetic strategy for fabricating highly-strong and highly-tough fluorescent biomaterials from natural biomacromolecules.