Aggregation-induced emission type non-traditional intrinsic luminescent polymers with improved thermal property via one-pot Barbier polymerization-induced emission

Abstract

Developing simple methods to prepare non-traditional intrinsic luminescent (NTIL) polymers with enhanced thermal property are very urgent, interesting and important. Here, we demonstrate a one-pot method to design NTIL polymer with improved thermal property by introducing phenyl ether group into the molecular design of triphenylmethanol-containing polymers via Barbier polymerization-induced emission (PIE). Through Barbier polymerization of 4,4′-dibromodiphenyl ether and peroxyesters in tetrahydrofuran at 80 °C, a series of phenyl ether containing polymers have been prepared, including poly (phenylether-triphenylmethanol) (PPTPM), poly (phenylether para-methyl-triphenylmethanol) (PPMTPM), poly (phenylether para-methoxy-triphenylmethanol) (PPMeOTPM). Interestingly, these polymers exhibit aggregation-induced emission (AIE) type NTIL characteristics. By introducing functional phenyl ether group into polymer design, the thermal property of these polymers gets improved, where the decomposition temperature at 5% weight loss (T5) increases from 196 to 288 °C, in comparison with that without phenyl ether group. This work therefore opens a simple and one-pot avenue for the preparation of AIE type NTIL polymers with improved thermal property, which might cause inspirations to different fields such as polymerization, NTIL and AIE.