Systemized organic functional group controls in polydiacetylenes and their effects on color changes

A variety of organic functional groups have been successfully installed into polydiacetylenes (PDAs) and applied to the color change-controlled system of PDA sensors. Ten diacetylene compounds possessing different functionalities and lengths were systemically synthesized and fully characterized using spectroscopic methods. The polymerized vesicle solution with these compounds showed different temperatures required to induce a color change (from blue to red) depending on the functionalities installed on 10,12-pentacosadiynoic acid (PCDA) molecules. In addition, the results reported here reveal that the intermolecular interactions of PCDA molecules and the intermolecular distance play a key role to the color of PDA system.