Issue 34, 2017

Oxygen tolerant photopolymerization for ultralow volumes

Abstract

A benchtop approach is developed for the synthesis of various polymeric architectures using an aqueous Reversible Addition–Fragmentation chain Transfer (RAFT) photopolymerization technique. Under visible green light irradiation (λ = 530 nm), eosin Y (EY) in the presence of ascorbic acid (AscA) as a reducing agent can initiate RAFT polymerization of a range of monomers (acrylamide, acrylate and methacrylate families) in water. More importantly, this process proceeds rapidly without the need for traditional deoxygenation and thus allows RAFT polymerizations to be performed in ultralow volumes (20 μL). This photopolymerization approach can be applied on a 96-well microtiter plate for the synthesis of a range of homopolymer and diblock copolymers. Furthermore, more complex polymeric architectures such as star polymers (arm first) and polymeric nanoparticles (via a polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) approach) were successfully synthesized in low volumes and without prior deoxygenation.

Graphical abstract: Oxygen tolerant photopolymerization for ultralow volumes

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Jan 2017
Accepted
31 Jan 2017
First published
16 Feb 2017

Polym. Chem., 2017,8, 5012-5022

Oxygen tolerant photopolymerization for ultralow volumes

J. Yeow, R. Chapman, J. Xu and C. Boyer, Polym. Chem., 2017, 8, 5012 DOI: 10.1039/C7PY00007C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements