Sow, M. M. G., Zhang, Z., Sow, C. H., & Lim, S. X. (2023). Upcycling fish scales through heating for steganography and Rhodamine B adsorption application. Nature Communications, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42080-1
Abstract:
AbstractWith increasing population and limited resources, a potential route for improving sustainability is increased reuse of waste materials. By re-looking at wastes, interesting properties and multifunctionalities can be discovered in materials previously explored. Despite years of research on bio-compatible fish scales, there is limited study on the fluorescence property of this abundant waste material. Controlled denaturation of collagen and introduction of defects can serve as a means to transform the fluorescence property of these fish scale wastes while providing more adsorption sites for pollutant removal, turning multifunctional fish scales into a natural steganographic material for transmitting text and images at both the macroscopic and microscopic levels and effectively removing Rhodamine B pollutants (91 % removal) within a short contact time (10 minutes). Our work offers a glimpse into the realm of engineering defects-induced fluorescence in natural material with potential as bio-compatible fluorescence probes while encouraging multidimensional applicability to be established in otherwise overlooked waste resources.
License type:
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Funding Info:
This research / project is supported by the Ministry of Education - ARC grant
Grant Reference no. : R-144-000-468-114/A-0008380-00-00