Presentacion oral invitada: Conjugated polymer nanoparticles as photosensitizers in aqueous media

PALACIOS, RODRIGO E.

Maresias, São Paulo

Congreso; XII Encuentro Latinoamericano de Fotoquímica y Fotobiología (ELAFOT); 2015

Conjugated polymer nanoparticles (NPs) have recently emerged as a new type of nano-materials of with interesting optoelectronic properties and potential application in organic opto-electronic devices such as solar cells, photo-catalyst and photo-sensors, etc. In this talk I will describe recent experiments on the synthesis and characterization of conjugated polymer nanoparticles and its application as photo-sensitizers to produce singlet oxygen. The reactions involving singlet oxygen are widely used in various fields of research, such as; organic synthesis, environmental remediation and photo-assisted photodynamic therapy. In this work we prepared doped conjugated polymer NPs containing a series of organic and inorganic dopants by controlled precipitation in both water and acetonitrile, yielding particles of 30 to 50 nm average diameter. Photo-induced generation of singlet oxygen by these particles was studied with a variety of techniques such as: oxidation kinetics of well known singlet oxygen chemical traps followed by substrate and oxygen consumption using UV-Vis spectroscopy and potentiometry, respectively. In addition singlet oxygen was directly detected by monitoring its emission centered at 1270 nm. The results highlight the ability of these NPs to generate singlet oxygen in aqueous medium and its potential use in photo-degradation of organic aqueous pollutants.