Issue 3, 2016

A biocompatible poly(N-vinylimidazole)-dot with both strong luminescence and good catalytic activity

Abstract

Poly(N-vinylimidazole) (PVIm) that contains a large amount of bio-active imidazole units was used as the sole carbon source to synthesize PVIm-dot through a one-pot hydrothermal method without any further modification and surface passivation. The measurements of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction proved that only a slight carbonization occurred during the hydrothermal treatment of PVIm. The characterizations of 1H NMR, FTIR and thermogravimetric analysis verified that the obtained PVIm-dot well inherited the chemical structure of its precursor PVIm. Unlike PVIm, the obtained PVIm-dot showed an obvious excitation-dependent photoluminescence (PL) behavior, and its PL features were quite stable at different pH values and ionic strength. The PVIm-dot possessed low cytotoxicity and could enter cancer cells, making it a suitable candidate for bio-imaging. Moreover, the PVIm-dot still kept the catalytic activity of its imidazole units. With the catalytic hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate as the model reaction, it was found that the PVIm-dot showed good catalytic activity in this reaction and its catalytic efficiency was better than PVIm. What's more, the variation of PL intensity during the reaction could be used as a luminescent sensor to monitor the progress of the hydrolysis reaction.

Graphical abstract: A biocompatible poly(N-vinylimidazole)-dot with both strong luminescence and good catalytic activity

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Oct 2015
Accepted
18 Dec 2015
First published
22 Dec 2015

RSC Adv., 2016,6, 2141-2148

A biocompatible poly(N-vinylimidazole)-dot with both strong luminescence and good catalytic activity

B. Wang, H. Liu and Y. Chen, RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 2141 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA20640E

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