Project R-7660

Multistep continuous flow photoreactors for high-precision polymer design (Research)

The emergence of continuous flow photo reactors has in recent years led to a revolution of photochemistry in organic and polymer synthesis. Reactions that previously were considered inefficient are shown to proceed with high yields in minimal time when being processed in flow reactors, due to the largely increased light efficiency in small diameter flow channels. Photoreactions offer tremendous advantages for polymer reactions, as mild reaction conditions can lead to improvement of product quality. For the high-value polymer market (functional polymers, di- and triblock copolymers, polymer hybrids), medium sized photoflow reactors are sufficient to produce significant amount of materials. Within this project, photopolymerizations and so-called photoclick reactions are optimized to offer the complete range of sequential and modular design for polymer materials, also with respect to selectivity of reactions towards incident wavelengths. Reactions are studied individually, and eventually coupled reactor setups are developed for one step synthesis of complex materials. To allow for efficient reactor design, the experimental work is supported by extensive kinetic modelling of the reactions. To allow for highthroughput screening of the polymer reactions, an online size-exclusion chromatography setup will be developed to scan for polymerization progress at high rate. This data is then complemented by already existing inline FT-IR and ESI-MS analysis.

01 January 2017 - 15 September 2020