Scalable synthesis of multicolour conjugated polymer nanoparticles via Suzuki-Miyaura polymerisation in a miniemulsion and application in bioimaging

Jonathan M. Behrendt, Jair A. Esquivel Guzman, Laura Purdie, Helen Willcock, John J. Morrison, Andrew B. Foster, Rachel K. O'Reilly, Mark C. McCairn, Michael L. Turner

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Suzuki cross-coupling polymerisation of aryldibromides and aryldiboronate esters in a sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-stabilised miniemulsion provides a versatile and direct route to fluorescent conjugated polymer nanoparticles (CPNs). These nanoparticles have a conjugated backbone based on poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene) (PFO), however, significant structural diversity is introduced by incorporation of electron withdrawing, heterocyclic comonomers (5–50 mol.%) in order to tune the emission wavelengths from blue to far-red/near-infrared. The robust nature of the polymerisation methodology allows for rapid assessment of the relationship between polymer composition, chain morphology and optical properties of the resultant CPNs. Moreover, the CPNs (after a simple and rapid purification step) can be used directly in fluorescence-based intracellular labelling experiments (in HCT116 cells), in which they display low cytotoxicity at biologically-useful concentrations.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)69-77
JournalReactive and Functional Polymers
Volume107
Early online date30 Aug 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2016

Keywords

  • conjugated polymer nanoparticles
  • miniemulsion
  • Suzuki-Miyaura polymerisation
  • scaleable
  • bioimaging

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