As the earth’s petroleum resources decline, and the consumer demand for naturally-derived materials increases, there is a need to create materials that are derived from more sustainable, natural sources, such as plant-based polymers. Our bioinspired, bioinorganic approach is to mimic the metal ion coordination that is found in nature, to produce materials with enhanced mechanical properties. We have previously shown that Fe(III)-alginate coordination results in Fe(III) oxo hydroxo clusters inside polysaccharide hydrogels materials, which were confirmed by Mössbauer spectroscopy to approximate the Fe(III) binding in the marine algae. The Fe(III)-carboxylate species are photoactive, and this photochemistry was used to control the mechanical properties of the resulting materials. We have also created photoresponsive Fe(III) and V(V) polysaccharide based films that showed light-controlled degradation. These materials are robust, water-stable bioplastics that feature metal coordination in the polysaccharide materials. These materials show enhanced toughness due to the metal coordination, as well as photoresponse with light. These results show that a bioinorganic approach can be used to create new responsive polysaccharide materials with advanced mechanical properties and photochemistry.

A bioinorganic approach to photoresponsive materials: V and Fe coordination in polysaccharides

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.