Abstract
Effective photosensitizers are highly desirable in many applications, such as photodynamic therapy, photocatalytic organic waste decomposition, and synthetic chemistry. Herein, we demonstrate polymerization-enhanced photosensitization, in which conjugated-polymer-based photosensitizers show much higher efficiency in singlet oxygen (1O2) production than their small-molecule analogs. Based on small-molecule photosensitizers SM1–SM4 with long wavelength emission, four conjugated polymer photosensitizers, CP1–CP4, were prepared. Interestingly, the conjugated polymer photosensitizers CP1–CP4 showed 5.06-, 5.07-, 1.73-, and 3.42-fold higher 1O2 generation efficiency than SM1–SM4, respectively. The improved intersystem crossing process from the singlet excitation states to the triplet excitation states and improved light-harvesting ability are essential to the enhancement of 1O2 generation efficiency. To illustrate the advantages of conjugated polymer photosensitizers on various applications, we demonstrate the superior performance of CP1 by using photoinduced organic waste decomposition, photoinduced organic oxidation reaction, and photodynamic cancer therapy as examples.