Development of Polydiacetylene-Embedded Microfibers Using 3-D Hydrodynamic Focusing Technique

Polydiacetylene (PDA), conjugated polymer, is an attractive sensor material that has a unique optical property to transform its color from visible blue to fluorescent red upon environmental perturbations like heat, pH, specific metal ions, and etc. In this study, we propose a novel method to detect metal ions by using polydiacetylene (PDA)-embedded sensor microfibers fabricated with a 3-D hydrodynamic focusing technique using alginate and calcium solutions. Moreover, by changing the head groups of PDA, we successfully detected Al³⁺ and Zn²⁺ ions up to 1mM using PDA micro fibers.