Hokkaido University Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery

Development of a Simple Method for Preparing Luminescent Polymers

A new method for providing luminescent functions to polymer materials by mechanical stimulation

Functional polymeric materials such as luminescent polymers are widely used in modern society. However, since their preparation often requires multiple synthetic steps, it has been desirable to develop a simpler synthetic method that does not rely on complicated chemical reactions. In this study, researchers in ICReDD developed a new method for the preparation of luminescent polymers via the generation of mechanoradicals under ball-milling conditions, followed by radical-radical coupling with a prefluorescent reagent. This method allowed the direct and conceptually simple preparation of luminescent polymeric materials from a wide range of generic polymers such as polystyrene, polymethyl methacrylate, and polyethylene. These results indicate that the present mechanoradical coupling strategy can produce various types of light-emitting polymers without the need for complicated, multi-step chemical synthesis.