Photochemically Mediated Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization Using Polymeric Semiconductor Mesoporous Graphitic Carbon Nitride

Photochemically mediated atom transfer radical polymerization of vinyl monomers is successfully activated by ecofriendly heterogeneous mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride (mpg-C3N4). This method pertains to the use of mpg-C3N4 as photoactivator for reduction of initially loaded copper(II) species, thus promoting the in situ formation of the copper(I) species. The controlled nature of the polymerizations in both natural sunlight and UV-light irradiation at ambient temperature is confirmed by the good agreement of the kinetics of the polymerization with theoretical values. The light on-off experiments demonstrate that polymerizations are clearly initiated and moderated by either UV light or sunlight. image