I have an idea of dissolving polystyrene in chlorofoam and mixed with methylene blue dye. Since both are soluble in chlorofoam but I would like to know whether the dye will be encapsulated in the PS-film during the mixing ?
Dear Kian,
Polystyrene has a benzene ring and methylene blue (MB) a large conjugated system, so I can imagine these may interact via pi-pi-interactions. So there is a good chance that some dye will become encapsulated. There is no way to predict that, you would need to try.
If you want to make sure the dye binds, could you use polystyrene sulfonate (NaPSS)? MB is a cation, NaPSS a polyanion, they will interact electrostatically which is a very strong bond in chloroform. The MB may change colour by stacking along the polymer chain, a phenomenon called metachromasy.
Now if you carefully cast and dry the dye loaded film I am sure part of the MB will remain within the film.
Hope this helps, kind regards, Leo
Thank you very much sir. I tried to use dichloromethane to dissolve the PS and mixed with MB. The MB turn purple, is it what sir means metachromasy?
Hi Kian,
Yes, if your dye went from blue to purple you have metachromasy. This what they call a hypsochromic shift; the dye stacks along the polymer chain causing the energy content of the total conjugated system to shift upwards, leading to a shift to lower wavelength in the absorbance spectrum.
Kind regards, Leo
Good Day Sir Leo,
Currently i am carrying out enzymatic degradation of this dyed PS film (Purple) due to metachromasy. Will the dye component detach from the polymer chain if there is enzymatic degradation has taken place?
Hi Kian,
If your enzyme manages to cut individual monomers off, and not just cut chains into smaller chains, you may see a gradual color change. The only way to test this is to dissolve the film and record UV/VIS spectra of the solution and compare these to the spectra of the original casted PE/Dye film. Next what you can do is plot the peak height of the metachromatic peak (Am) divided by the monomeric dye peak (AM) so you will get(Am/AM) and plot this as a function of reaction time.
If you want to fully detach the dye, you could add 0.1M of NaCl or 20% propanol. That will fully release the dye, so you have all the dye in its monomeric form.
Hope this helps, kind regards, Leo
Hi, I read about your recommendations, I have also requirement of labeled polystyrene that will integrate in Pickering emulsion system with CNT , Toluene and water. Do you think it will be O.k to do the same procedure with the (NaPSS) and MB , and combine them into the emulsion system?
thank you very much!
Avital
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