A facile method to prepare a polyethylene glycol modified polysilane as a waterborne photoinitiator

• The synthetic procedure for waterborne polyether modified polysilane is very simple.
• The waterborne polysilane has very good solubility in water.
• The prepared water-soluble polysilane has a very good radical photoinitiating property.

Developing water-soluble or waterborne polysilane photoinitiators meets the demands for environmental friendly photopolymerization applications. By employing this photoinitiated strategy, a waterborne polysilane photoinitiator polysilane-co-poly(polyethyleneglycol acrylate) was prepared by an efficient photodecomposition of polymethylphenylsilane in the presence of acrylate functionalized polyethyleneglycol. The prepared polymer was characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, 29Si NMR, FT-IR, UV–vis GPC, DSC and TGA. It could disperse in water easily and form micelle. The average micelle size (10 mg/mL) was measured to be 46 nm by dynamic light scatting technique. The course of photopolymerization of acrylamide in deuterated water initiated by it was investigated by the real-time FT-IR spectroscopy. The photopolymerization kinetic data revealed that the conversion of acrylamide reached 80% and 100% after 40 and 110 s irradiation, respectively. The photopolymerization of the water solution of acrylamide, hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and acrylic acid (AA) initiated by this polymer at air atmosphere provided successfully polymeric jelly materials in high yields.

A waterborne polysilane photoinitiator has been prepared by a facile procedure and has been successfully photoinitiated polymerization of a variety of vinyl monomers in water with high yields.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide