Template assisted polymerization of functional materials and their opto-electronic properties

Abstract

Highly ordered iron incorporated mesoporous silica (Fe-SBA15) was prepared and used as a template for catalytic polymerization of functional molecules. The mesoporous catalysts were used as an oxidative nano-reactor in heterogeneous catalytic reactions to afford highly fluorescent poly(methylene anthracene)s (PMAn) when anthracene was used as a monomer. The structure of the mesoporous Fe-SBA15 was 2D channel with large surface area of 710 m 2 /g and pore size of 9.2 nm. The fluorescent polymer was synthesized with high yield of 90 % in short reaction time. The synthesized polymer PMAn showed good emission properties with high excimer emission, which was highly affected by the pore size of the reactor. This indicated that the optical properties of fluorescent polymers synthesized from this method could be controlled by the pore size of the mesoporous templates.