Photochromic Polymers Based on Fluorophenyl Oxime Ester Photoinitiators as Photoswitchable Molecules

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.0c00198
• Publication Date: 2020-07-08T19:28:00Z
• Authors: Yuyang Ding; Shengling Jiang; Yanjing Gao; Jun Nie; Hongguang Du; Fang Sun
• Keywords: Merocyanine; Acrylate polymer

We designed and synthesized two novel fluorophenyl oxime ester photoinitiators (E-FBOXEs) with the ability to prepare photochromic polymers, then polymers based on E-FBOXEs were prepared by fast photopolymerization. can initiate photopolymerization of tripropylene glycol diacrylate under UV LED irradiation at 395 nm, final double bond conversion is achieved up 81%. Meanwhile, photocured film (PTPGDA) initiated or doped E-FBOXE-Me displays thermally reversible photochromism a moderate temperature (50 °C), switching from brown colorless, because depends cleavage N–O bond, resulting in generation acetoxy radicals colored iminyl planar conformation recombination form colorless molecules nonplanar heating. Importantly, PTPGDA exhibits good fatigue resistance. The have great potential for application preparation polymeric materials.