TY - JOUR A1 - Cringoli, Maria C. A1 - Kralj, Slavko A1 - Kurbasic, Marina A1 - Urban, Massimo A1 - Marchesan, Silvia T1 - Luminescent supramolecular hydrogels from a tripeptide and nitrogen-doped carbon nanodots JF - Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology PY - 2017/// VL - 8 SP - 1553 EP - 1562 SN - 2190-4286 DO - 10.3762/bjnano.8.157 PB - Beilstein-Institut JA - Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. UR - https://doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.8.157 KW - carbon nanodots KW - composites KW - hydrogels KW - nanomaterials KW - peptide self-assembly N2 - The combination of different components such as carbon nanostructures and organic gelators into composite nanostructured hydrogels is attracting wide interest for a variety of applications, including sensing and biomaterials. In particular, both supramolecular hydrogels that are formed from unprotected D,L-tripeptides bearing the Phe-Phe motif and nitrogen-doped carbon nanodots (NCNDs) are promising materials for biological use. In this work, they were combined to obtain luminescent, supramolecular hydrogels at physiological conditions. The self-assembly of a tripeptide upon application of a pH trigger was studied in the presence of NCNDs to evaluate effects at the supramolecular level. Luminescent hydrogels were obtained whereby NCND addition allowed the rheological properties to be fine-tuned and led to an overall more homogeneous system composed of thinner fibrils with narrower diameter distribution. ER -