Nanoconfinement Enabled High‐Efficiency and Long‐Lifetime Multicolor Afterglow Hydrogels for Advanced Spatiotemporal Encryption and Pathogen Eradication

ABSTRACT Multicolor organic afterglow hydrogels that simultaneously possess efficient exciton harvesting, ultralong lifetimes and large deformations are still rare. Here, a nano‐restriction engineered strategy that embeds a rigid and chromatically diverse hydrogen bond supramolecular framework into hydrogel networks is presented. The confined microenvironment of the supramolecular framework suppresses non‐radiative quenching to prolong triplet lifetimes and acts as stress‐dissipating nodes to reinforce the polymer matrix. The synthesized hydrogels exhibit tunable afterglow emissions from deep blue to orange–red, lifetimes up to 2535 ms, and quantum yields above 29.4%, while retaining a compressive strength of 7.7 MPa and fracture strain near 1400%, with excellent stability under repeated cycling. Programmable color and decay dynamics of afterglow hydrogels enable spatiotemporally resolved encryption. Moreover, the long‐lived triplet excitons efficiently sensitize singlet oxygen, delivering >99.9% antibacterial efficacy to accelerate infected wound healing. This approach provides a general route to develop multifunctional afterglow soft materials that couple high exciton utilization and ultralong lifetime with mechanical robustness.

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Publication Details

Journal
Angewandte Chemie
Published
2026-04-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.3224418
Primary Topic
Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Nanoconfinement Enabled High‐Efficiency and Long‐Lifetime Multicolor Afterglow Hydrogels for Advanced Spatiotemporal Encryption and Pathogen Eradication

Heng Dong, Gaozhan Xie, Guangliang Hong, Yixin Ouyang et al.
Angewandte Chemie
Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
article

Nanoconfinement Enabled High‐Efficiency and Long‐Lifetime Multicolor Afterglow Hydrogels for Advanced Spatiotemporal Encryption and Pathogen Eradication

Heng Dong, Gaozhan Xie, Guangliang Hong, Yixin Ouyang, Zhisheng Gao, Ye Tao, Hui Li, Runfeng Chen, Shuman Zhang, Wei Huang, Jiaxin Chen, Xiaoye Li, Xiaolong Liu, Huanhuan Li
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT Multicolor organic afterglow hydrogels that simultaneously possess efficient exciton harvesting, ultralong lifetimes and large deformations are still rare. Here, a nano‐restriction engineered strategy that embeds a rigid and chromatically diverse hydrogen bond supramolecular framework into hydrogel networks is presented. The confined microenvironment of the supramolecular framework suppresses non‐radiative quenching to prolong triplet lifetimes and acts as stress‐dissipating nodes to reinforce the polymer matrix. The synthesized hydrogels exhibit tunable afterglow emissions from deep blue to orange–red, lifetimes up to 2535 ms, and quantum yields above 29.4%, while retaining a compressive strength of 7.7 MPa and fracture strain near 1400%, with excellent stability under repeated cycling. Programmable color and decay dynamics of afterglow hydrogels enable spatiotemporally resolved encryption. Moreover, the long‐lived triplet excitons efficiently sensitize singlet oxygen, delivering >99.9% antibacterial efficacy to accelerate infected wound healing. This approach provides a general route to develop multifunctional afterglow soft materials that couple high exciton utilization and ultralong lifetime with mechanical robustness.

Angewandte Chemie
Northwestern Polytechnical University (CN), Wenzhou Medical University (CN), First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University (CN), Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (CN), Quzhou City People's Hospital (CN), Quzhou University (CN), Nanjing Medical University (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing Medical Science and Technique Development Foundation
Openalex Percentile: Top 22%
Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
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