Applicability of hemicyanine phenyltrialkylborate salts as free‐radical photoinitiators in the visible‐light polymerization of acrylate

The photoinitiation ability of photoredox pairs composed of a hemicyanine dye cation and different borate anions for the radical polymerization of 2‐ethyl‐2‐(hydroxymethyl)‐1,3‐propanediol triacrylate was investigated. In such a system, the excited dye chromophore is reduced by different tetraorganylborate anions. Upon irradiation at 488 nm, reductive carbon–boron bond cleavage occurs, producing reactive radicals, which start the chain reaction. The efficiency of bond‐breaking processes was found to be dependent on the nature of both the acceptors and the donors. The experimental results show that the photoinitiating ability of the tested photoredox pairs were controlled by both the driving force of the electron‐transfer process between the electron donor and the electron acceptor and the reactivity of the free radical that resulted from the secondary reactions occurring after the photoinduced electron‐transfer process. Using the nanosecond flash photolysis method, we studied the spectral and kinetic characteristics of the triplet state of cyanine dye and determined the rate constants of the triplet quenching by phenyltrialkylborate salts. The results obtained show that the tetramethylammonium phenyl‐tri‐n‐butylborate (TB7) has a faster electron‐transfer rate than the tetramethylammonium n‐butyltriphenylborate (TB2) salt, which bore only one butyl group attached to the boron. The relative initiator efficiency of the triphenylbutylborate salts, as compared to the corresponding phenyltrialkylborate salts with a common chromophore, was determined. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012