Vinyl monomers bearing chromophore moieties and their polymers. IV. Fluorescence and photosensitizing behavior of 8-acryloyloxyquinoline and its polymer

Abstract

Acrylic monomers bearing electron-donating quinolyl moiety, i.e., 8-acryloyloxyquinoline (AQ) was prepared and polymerized. It was found that the fluorescence intensity of AQ was much lower than that of P(AQ) at the same chromophore concentration. The fluorescence of P(AQ) could be quenched by electron-deficient vinyl monomers, such as acrylonitrile (AN) and methyl methacrylate (MMA). This is another example of the “fluorescence structural self-quenching effect” termed by us previously, and demonstrates again that this phenomenon is not an accidental but a general one for acrylic monomers bearing electron-donating chromophores. The photopolymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) sensitized by AQ and P(AQ) as well as combining with carbon tetrabromide (CBr4) was studied kinetically. From the rates of the polymerization (Rp) and overall activation energies obtained for these four systems, it was found that Rp sensitized by the binary systems was much higher than by AQ or P(AQ) alone, while the molecular weights of the resulting P(AN) were lower. The fluorescent analysis of the resulting P(AN) in solution showed that the sensitizers also entered into the P(AN) chains. A mechanism of charge transfer complex (CTC) formation was tentatively suggested for the photopolymerization of AN initiated by these four systems. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 35: 1087–1093, 1997