Biodegradable long-persistent luminescent films based on PHB/PHBV as matrix and sunlight conversion applications

Abstract

Fully biodegradable and environmentally-friendly luminescent films were fabricated by doping the long-persistent luminescence inorganic phosphors containing europium ions into poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) matrix. The resulting films were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), photoluminescence (PL), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The FT-IR results were confirmed that the inorganic phosphors were uniformly dispersed in the PHB and PHBV matrix. The emission spectra of the yellow PHB film with 15% phosphor and the blue PHBV film with 20% phosphor exhibited the highest emission intensities. Compared with the yellow and red fluorescent films, the afterglow decay curves indicated that the blue films could keep the best luminescent performance for a long time. On the basis of TGA cures, all the luminescent films exhibited good thermal stability. As far as we known, this was the first example that doping long-persistent luminescent phosphors into biodegradable polymer matrix to fabrication luminescent films for sunlight conversion.

Graphical Abstract

A series of biodegradable and environmentally-friendly luminescent films were fabricated by doping the long-persistent luminescence inorganic phosphors containing europium ions into PHB/PHBV matrix. These luminescent films exhibited excellent afterglow performance whether in the absence or presence excitation source, indicating that these films can effectively convert harmful ultraviolet light into the beneficial light for plant growth. So these luminescent films can be widely utilized in agricultural field for sunlight conversion.

Keywords:

• Polymer matrix
• PHB/PHBV
• biodegradable luminescent film
• long-persistent luminescence
• sunlight conversion

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the NSFC (No. 21875025), the special program of Chongqing Science and Technology Commission (cstc2018jcyjAX0296 and cstc2017zdcyzdyfX0007), the Innovation Research Group at Institutions of Higher Education in Chongqing (CXQT19027), and the Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (No. KJZD-K201801101, KJ1709223).