Microspheres from light—a sustainable materials platform

Driven by the demand for highly specialized polymeric materials via milder, safer, and sustainable processes, we herein introduce a powerful, purely light driven platform for microsphere synthesis – including facile synthesis by sunlight. Our light-induced step-growth precipitation polymerization pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2022-09, Vol.13 (1), p.5132-5132, Article 5132
Main Authors: Delafresnaye, Laura, Feist, Florian, Hooker, Jordan P., Barner-Kowollik, Christopher
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/923/3931
639/638/455/941
639/638/455/959
Additives
Ambient temperature
Bismaleimides
Cycloaddition
Diels-Alder reactions
Fabrication
Fluorescence
Humanities and Social Sciences
Light
Light effects
Microspheres
multidisciplinary
Photochemistry
Photopolymerization
Polymerization
Polymers
Process controls
Radiation
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Solvents
Sun
Sunlight
Surfactants
Sustainable materials
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Summary:Driven by the demand for highly specialized polymeric materials via milder, safer, and sustainable processes, we herein introduce a powerful, purely light driven platform for microsphere synthesis – including facile synthesis by sunlight. Our light-induced step-growth precipitation polymerization produces monodisperse particles (0.4–2.4 μm) at ambient temperature without any initiator, surfactant, additive or heating, constituting an unconventional approach compared to the classically thermally driven synthesis of particles. The microspheres are formed via the Diels-Alder cycloaddition of a photoactive monomer (2-methylisophthaldialdehyde, MIA) and a suitable electron deficient dienophile (bismaleimide). The particles are stable in the dry state as well as in solution and their surface can be further functionalized to produce fluorescent particles or alter their hydrophilicity. The simplicity and versatility of our approach introduces a fresh opportunity for particle synthesis, opening access to a yet unknown material class. Photopolymerization provides a safe and mild fabrication pathway towards polymeric particles but the implementation of photochemistry from solution to dispersed media to produce particles is far from trivial. Here, the authors demonstrate an additive-free step-growth photopolymerization with sunlight, exploiting the photoinduced Diels-Alder to fabricate micrometer sized polymeric particles.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-32429-3