Polymer photooxidation excited states

Generally, photooxidation has an even stronger negative effect on lasing and stimulated emission in conjugated polymers than it has on the EL-performance. It not only reduces the number of excited 5j states but additionally creates charged absorbing species that partly compensate the stimulated emission due to the neutral excited states. 

Other carboxylate-dye interactions have been reported. Ethylenediamine tetracarboxylic acid (EDTA) and its salts are well known reductants for a variety of dyes (54,55). The amino-acid N-phenylglycine can be photooxidized and induce polymer formation (26,56,57). Studies of the efficiency of photopolymerization of acrylate monomers by MB/N-phenylglycine combinations as a function of the pH of the medium suggest that either the amino group or the free carboxylate can act as an electron donor for the dye excited state, but that the amine functional-lity is the more efficient coinitiator (10). Davidson and coworkers (58) have shown that ketocarboxylic acids are photode-carboxylated by electron transfer quenching of dye triplet states under anaerobic conditions. Superoxide formation can occur when oxygen is present. 

The Ni and Pt complexes can also be incorporated into polymer films of quaternized poly(vinylpyridine) (PVP) and deposited onto the transparent electrode (84). Photocurrents are enhanced to microamps (pA), an increase that may be attributed to either the effect of immobilization of the complexes near the electrode surface or an increase of the excited-state lifetimes in the polymer matrix. However, the effective concentrations of the complexes in this study were much greater than for the acetonitrile solutions in their earlier work. The polymer films are not stable to continuous photolysis, and voltammograms of the films are quite sensitive to anions used in the supporting electrolyte. The system can be stabilized by using a polymer blend of PVP and a copolymer containing quaternary ammonium ion and including [Fe(CN)6]4- in the electrolyte solution (85). Upon irradiation of the visible MLCT bands of [M(mnt)2]2 (M = Ni, Pt), photocurrents are produced. The mechanism (Scheme 4) is believed to involve photooxidation of the metal bis(dithiolene) triplet state by the Sn02 electrode, followed by [Fe(CN)6]4 reduction of the monoanion, with completion of the ET cycle as ferricyanide, Fe(CN)6 3, diffuses to the other electrode and is reduced. 

In addition to these two primary processes, there are also possibilities of sensitization of the photooxidation by a variety of mechanisms. The first of these is the formation of an excited state of a ketone or a polynuclear aromatic compound by absorption of light followed by quenching with oxygen to form singlet oxygen (102) which later adds to a double bond in the polymer to form an allylic hydroperoxide by the scheme shown below. This reaction has been demonstrated to occur quantitatively in... 

As an introduction, the mechanism responsible for the outdoor photooxidative degradation of many synthetic polymers can be summarized in Figure 29 (110,111). Some absorbing chromophore absorbs sunlight to produce an excited electronic state, which may, in addition to the usual physical fates, suffer chemical reactions leading ultimately to loss of mechanical properties of the polymer. Such reactions Include direct molecular dissociation, such as the Norrlsh Type II process referred to earlier (see Section II), production of O2 ( g) generally through triplet-state sensitization... 

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