Star poly(4-vinylpyridine)s using dendritic ATRP initiators: Synthesis, electrolyte property and performance in dye sensitized solar cell

10-(pyren-1-yl)-10h-phenothiazine and pyrene as organic catalysts for photoinitiated ATRP of 4-vinylpyridine

“…Because this pair of electrons is excluded from the aromaticity, it can bind with the protons; therefore, pyridine is alkaline and could also coordinate with transition metal ions to form complexes [1,2] . With these special properties above, pyridine contained polymers have caught much attention of scientists for various applications, for example dye sensitized solar cell [3] , pH-responsive materials [4] , block copolymer micelles used in drug delivery [5] , moreover, they are capable of forming self-assembly supramolecular structures via nitrogen atoms on the pyridine ring [1] . Materials use for applications above are typically based on poly (4-vinylpyridine) (P4VP) or copolymers of 4-vinylpyridine (4VP) and other monomers depending on specific purposes.…”

“…Typical methodologies to synthesize polymers from 4VP are free radical polymerization [6,7] , living anionic polymerization [8] , and controlled radical polymerizations (CRPs) including nitroxide-mediated polymerization (NMP) [9] , reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer polymerization (RAFT) [10,11] and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) [2,3,12] . Nowadays, polymer chemistry has been significantly developing and the polymerization methods are required to produce polymers with high quality such as narrow polydispersity index (PDI) as well as control molecular weight.…”