Design and preparation of high-performance amine-based poly(ether ketone)s with strong photonic luminescence

Amine-based poly(ether ketone)s (A-PEKs), as novel high-performance functional polymers, have been obtained by the polycondensation of dibromo ketones with aromatic ether diamines via palladium-catalyzed aryl amination reaction. The structures of the polymers are characterized by means of FT-IR, 1H NMR spectroscopy and elemental analysis, the results show a good agreement with the proposed structures. DSC and TGA measurements exhibit that polymers possess high glass transition temperature (Tg ≥ 175 °C) and good thermal stability with high decomposition temperatures (T5 ≥ 400 °C). Based on the hydrogen bonds between the polymer chains, thin films of A-PEKs show great mechanical behaviors with high tensile strength up to 89.5 Mpa. In addition, due to the photoinduced intramolecular charge-transfer (ICT) of A-PEKs, these synthesized polymers are endowed with significantly strong photonic luminescence in N,N′-dimethylformamide.