Recent advances in photoinduced donor/acceptor copolymerization

Photoinitiated free radical polymerization of donor (D)/acceptor (A) type monomers has gained considerable interest due to the possibility to efficiently photopolymerize non-acrylate based systems. Furthermore, this photoinduced alternating copolymerization can be accomplished without the presence of a conventional free radical generating photoinitiator. In the past, we have shown that the structural influences in the direct photolysis of N-Alkyl and N-Arylmaleimides as well as their corresponding ground state charge transfer complexes (CTC) with suitable donors have carefully been investigated. For certain combinations of A and D type monomers, a direct photolysis of the ground state complex or the excitation of the acceptor, followed by the formation of an exciplex, has been shown to initiate the copolymerization. Herein, we show that the main route of initiation is based on inter or intra molecular H-abstraction from an excited state maleimide, whereby no exciplex formation takes place. H-abstraction will predominantly take place in systems where easily abstractable hydrogens are present. Our laser flash photolysis investigation, ESR [1] (A. Hiroshi, I. Takasi, T. Nosi, Macromol. Chem. 190 (1989) 2821) and phosphorescence emissions [2,3] (K.S. Chen, T. Foster, J.K.S. Wan, J. Phys. Chem. 84 (1980) 2473; C.J. Seliskar, S.P. McGlynn, J. Chem. Phys. 55 (1971) 4337) studies show that triplet excited states of N-alkyl substituted maleimides (RMI), which are well known strong precursors for direct H-abstractions from aliphatic ethers and secondary alcohols, are formed upon excitation. Rates of copolymerization and degrees of conversion for copolymerization of maleimide/vinyl ether pairs in air and nitrogen have been measured as a function of hydrogen abstractability of the excited triplet state MI as well as the influence of concentration and hydrogen donating effect of the hydrogen donor.