Scalable synthesis of multicolour conjugated polymer nanoparticles via Suzuki-Miyaura polymerisation in a miniemulsion and application in bioimaging

• Published in: Reactive & functional polymers 2016-10, Vol.107, p.69-77
• Main Authors: Behrendt, Jonathan M., Esquivel Guzman, Jair A., Purdie, Laura, Willcock, Helen, Morrison, John J., Foster, Andrew B., O'Reilly, Rachel K., McCairn, Mark C., Turner, Michael L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bioimaging; Conjugated polymer nanoparticles; Miniemulsion; Scalable; Suzuki-Miyaura polymerisation
• ISSN: 1381-5148
• DOI: 10.1016/j.reactfunctpolym.2016.08.006

Suzuki cross-coupling polymerisation of aryldibromides and aryldiboronate esters in a sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-stabilised miniemulsion provides a versatile and direct route to fluorescent conjugated polymer nanoparticles (CPNs). These nanoparticles have a conjugated backbone based on poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene) (PFO), however, significant structural diversity is introduced by incorporation of electron withdrawing, heterocyclic comonomers (5–50mol.%) in order to tune the emission wavelengths from blue to far-red/near-infrared. The robust nature of the polymerisation methodology allows for rapid assessment of the relationship between polymer composition, chain morphology and optical properties of the resultant CPNs. Moreover, the CPNs (after a simple and rapid purification step) can be used directly in fluorescence-based intracellular labelling experiments (in HCT116 cells), in which they display low cytotoxicity at biologically-useful concentrations.