UV absorption enhanced polydopamine coating

Mussel-inspired polydopamine (PDA) coatings have gained significant attention in various fields, including biomedicine, energy, detection, and UV protection, owing to their versatile and promising properties. Among these properties, UV shielding stands out as a key feature of PDA coatings. Nevertheless, the current methods for tuning the UV-shielding properties of PDA coatings are quite limited, and only rely on thickness adjustment, which might involve additional issues like color and visible light transmittance to the coating layer. In this study, we propose a facile and modular approach to enhance the UV absorption of PDA coatings by incorporating thiol-heterocycle (TH) derivatives. Both pre- and post-modification strategies can effectively impede the formation of conjugated structures within PDA, leading to enhanced UV absorption within the PDA layers. More importantly, these strategies can improve the UV absorption of PDA coatings while reducing the visible light absorption. Furthermore, this method enabled efficient regulation of the UV absorption of PDA coatings by altering the ring type (benzene ring or pyridine ring) and substituent on the ring (methoxyl group or hydrogen atom). These PDA coatings with enhanced UV absorption demonstrate great promise for applications in UV protection, antibacterial activity, wound healing and dye degradation. This article illustrates a facile approach to enhance the UV absorption of PDA coatings by incorporating thiol-heterocycle derivatives. These PDA coatings showed great promise for applications in UV protection, antibacterial and dye degradation.