Surfaces Decorated with Polymeric Nanocompartments for pH Reporting

Here we present a novel active surface that demonstrates pH responsiveness and can be used as a platform for designing smart labels'. To generate our active surfaces, we immobilized polymer nanocompartments onto glass surfaces using thiol-ene chemistry. Prior to surface attachment, a pH responsive model dye was encapsulated within nanocompartments at two different pH values. We confirmed the attachment and distribution of dye-loaded polymersomes and established the pH responsiveness of the active surface construct. The strategy presented here was carefully chosen to obtain small sized functional surfaces from commercially available materials that can be easily integrated into intelligent packaging systems. The ability to miniaturize such smart labels, while still being able to detect their response to the environment, is a crucial step towards developing active surfaces suitable for food packaging applications.