A rapid approach to urushiol–copper(I) coordination polymer under UV irradiation

Urushiol–metal polymers have attracted more and more attention in China because of their wide applications as a heavy anticorrosive coating in chemical industry. They could also offer many novel properties, including catalytic activity, magnetic property, semiconductive properties, flame retarding performance, etc., and significant progresses have been achieved in synthesis and study on the mechanism of these polymers. In this paper, a rapid method for fabrication of urushiol–copper(I) coordination polymer was developed under UV irradiation within 2 min. The formation and thermo-stability of the cured films were characterized by ESR, XPS, FT-IR, TGA, etc. The results suggested the coordination occurred between copper(I) ion and oxygen under UV irradiation. In the course of UV irradiation, the hydroxyl groups on the phenyl ring of urushiol were dissociated to urushiol semiquinone, and then coordinated with copper(I) ions generated by deoxidization of copper(II) ion. At the same time, crosslinking reaction on the long aliphatic unsaturated side chain occurred to form polymer. TG analysis showed that the polymer had excellent thermo-stability.