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Abstract
Modern scientific and historical developments have uncovered one of the mysteries of the ancient world – a synthetic blue pigment. The first synthetic pigment, Egyptian Blue, is a layered calcium copper silicate material that is a vibrant and striking blue1. Although this pigment was first synthesized in the 3rd millennium BC, it still colors the minds of scientists today with the recent discovery of its photoluminescent properties— NIR luminescence2,3. In this work, we investigate and exploit the NIR luminescent properties of the ancient pigment Egyptian Blue as well as the modern synthetic pigment Manganese Blue. Chapters 2 and 4 discuss the synthesis and characterization of Egyptian blue and Manganese blue, respectively, and chapters 3 and 5 discuss the application of these materials. This work explores Egyptian blue as anti-counterfeit tracer pigment in textiles, and manganese blue as a biomedical imaging fluorophore in vitro.