Aggregation-Induced Emission Luminogen Catalyzed Photocontrolled Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer Polymerization in an Aqueous Environment

A robust aggregation-induced emission luminogen photo-catalyst, 5,6-bis(4 '-(diphenylamino)-[1,1 '-biphenyl]-4-yl)pyrazine-2,3-dicar-bonitrile (DCDPP-2TPA), for photoinduced electron transfer-reversibleaddition-fragmentation chain transfer (PET-RAFT) polymerization wasinvestigated. A variety of well-defined polymers with narrow polydispersities(D< 1.20) were prepared using the donor-acceptor (D-A) typeaggregation-induced emission luminogen as a photocatalyst (as low as 5ppm with respect to monomers) under visible light at ambient temperature.The use of ppm level of metal- or organo-photocatalysts for PET-RAFTpolymerization has been investigated before, but mainly in organic solvents, and very much fewer studies were reported in aqueous environments. The polymerization strategy was successfully demonstrated in water with orwithout oxygen-free conditions and resulted in structure-controlled polymers. We observed that the fluorescence of DCDPP-2TPA was intensified linearly with an increase in the degree of polymerization