Combining physical embedding and covalent bonding for stable encapsulation of quantum dots into agarose hydrogels

Jianbo Liu; Xiaohai Yang; Kemin Wang; Qing Wang; Haining Ji; Chunlei Wu; Jing Li; Xiaoxiao He; Jinlu Tang; Jin Huang

doi:10.1039/C1JM13090K

Combining physical embedding and covalent bonding for stable encapsulation of quantum dots into agarose hydrogels†

Jianbo Liu,^a Xiaohai Yang,^a Kemin Wang,*^a Qing Wang,^a Haining Ji,^a Chunlei Wu,^a Jing Li,^a Xiaoxiao He,^a Jinlu Tang^a and Jin Huang^a

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* Corresponding authors

^a State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory for Bio-Nanotechnology and Molecular Engineering of Hunan Province, Hunan University, Changsha, P.R. China
E-mail: kmwang@hnu.cn
Fax: +86 731 88821566
Tel: +86 731 88821566

Abstract

A strategy of combining physical embedding and covalent crosslinking was developed to encapsulate cysteamine-capped quantum dots (QDs) into agarose hydrogel microbeads (AHM). Cysteamine-capped QDs were encapsulated into the pores of agarose hydrogel microbeads by virtue of hydrogen bonding between the amino groups of cysteamine and hydroxyl groups of agarose, resulting in more than 6.0 × 10⁷ QDs per microbead. Polyethylenimine (PEI) and oxalaldehyde were then introduced to form a covalently crosslinked network to further stabilize the encapsulation. The resulting hybrid hydrogel microbeads exhibited high doping capacity and negligible QDs leakage, and enabled optical multicolor barcoding.

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Combining physical embedding and covalent bonding for stable encapsulation of quantum dots into agarose hydrogels†

Abstract

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Combining physical embedding and covalent bonding for stable encapsulation of quantum dots into agarose hydrogels

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