Versatile Polydopamine Platforms: Synthesis and Promising Applications for Surface Modification and Advanced Nanomedicine

TLDR

Polydopamine, a mussel‑inspired material, offers simple preparation, biocompatibility, strong adhesion, easy functionalization, photothermal conversion, and quenching, making it attractive for versatile surface functionalization. This review summarizes recent advances in PDA synthesis, polymerization mechanisms, physicochemical properties, nano/microstructures, and applications, and discusses remaining challenges and future perspectives. The review details PDA synthesis and polymerization mechanisms, physicochemical characteristics, and highlights recent achievements in surface modification and biomedicine from 2016–2019. The review is timely and valuable for scientists, facilitating further development of surface coating methods and PDA‑based materials.

Abstract

As a mussel-inspired material, polydopamine (PDA), possesses many properties, such as a simple preparation process, good biocompatibility, strong adhesive property, easy functionalization, outstanding photothermal conversion efficiency, and strong quenching effect. PDA has attracted increasingly considerable attention because it provides a simple and versatile approach to functionalize material surfaces for obtaining a variety of multifunctional nanomaterials. In this review, recent significant research developments of PDA including its synthesis and polymerization mechanism, physicochemical properties, different nano/microstructures, and diverse applications are summarized and discussed. For the sections of its applications in surface modification and biomedicine, we mainly highlight the achievements in the past few years (2016–2019). The remaining challenges and future perspectives of PDA-based nanoplatforms are discussed rationally at the end. This timely and overall review should be desirable for a wide range of scientists and facilitate further development of surface coating methods and the production of PDA-based materials.