Figure 11.

a) Left: Physical demonstration of extreme elasticity of Si‐NPs hydrogels by stretching. Right: Stress‐strain plots showing excellent toughness by Si‐NP hydrogels. SNP 0.09 indicate gels made with 0.09mg/mL surface treated silica nanoparticle, SNP0.009^a indicate gels made with same amount of silica without surface treatment. CC1 is the hydrogel without silica nanoparticles. Reproduced with permission.69Copyright 2013, Royal Society of Chemistry. b) Demonstration of cellulose networks in the hydrogels protecting the CdSe/ZnS structure and preserving the quantum dots characteristics. Appearances of the Quantum dot (QD) ‐cellulose hydrogels under a 302 nm UV lamp (left), and Photoluminescence spectra of CdSe/ZnS (core/shell) QDs with average diameter 2.8 nm (green), 3.0 nm (yellowish‐green), 3.2 nm (yellow) and 3.6 nm (red) respectively in buffer solution. QD‐cellulose hydrogel emission peaks are matching with (right, bottom) with emission peaks of the free quantum dots in buffer. Adapted and reproduced with permission.77 Copyright 2009, Royal Society of Chemistry.