Department of Biology, Evolution and Optics of Nanostructure Group, University of Ghent, Gent 9000, Belgium.
School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325, United States.
Chem Rev. 2024 Jun 12;124(11):7165-7213. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.3c00858. Epub 2024 May 17.
Melanin, especially integumentary melanin, interacts in numerous ways with electromagnetic radiation, leading to a set of critical functions, including radiation protection, UV-protection, pigmentary and structural color productions, and thermoregulation. By harnessing these functions, melanin and melanin-like materials can be widely applied to diverse applications with extraordinary performance. Here we provide a unified overview of the melanin family (all melanin and melanin-like materials) and their interactions with the complete electromagnetic radiation spectrum (X-ray, Gamma-ray, UV, visible, near-infrared), which until now has been absent from the literature and is needed to establish a solid fundamental base to facilitate their future investigation and development. We begin by discussing the chemistries and morphologies of both natural and artificial melanin, then the fundamentals of melanin-radiation interactions, and finally the exciting new developments in high-performance melanin-based functional materials that exploit these interactions. This Review provides both a comprehensive overview and a discussion of future perspectives for each subfield of melanin that will help direct the future development of melanin from both fundamental and applied perspectives.
黑色素，特别是皮肤黑色素，以多种方式与电磁辐射相互作用，从而产生一系列关键功能，包括辐射防护、紫外线防护、色素和结构色产生以及体温调节。通过利用这些功能，黑色素和类黑色素材料可以广泛应用于具有卓越性能的各种应用中。在这里，我们提供了黑色素家族（所有黑色素和类黑色素材料）及其与完整电磁辐射光谱（X 射线、伽马射线、紫外线、可见光、近红外光）相互作用的统一概述，这在文献中一直缺失，需要建立一个坚实的基础来促进它们未来的研究和发展。我们首先讨论了天然和人工黑色素的化学和形态，然后讨论了黑色素与辐射相互作用的基础，最后讨论了利用这些相互作用的高性能基于黑色素的功能材料的令人兴奋的新发展。本综述既提供了黑色素各个子领域的全面概述，也讨论了未来的展望，这将有助于从基础和应用的角度指导黑色素的未来发展。
