Red-Light-Driven Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization for High-Throughput Polymer Synthesis in Open Air

Abstract

Photoinduced reversible-deactivation radical polymerization (photo-RDRP) techniques offer exceptional control over polymerization, providing access to well-defined polymers and hybrid materials with complex architectures. However, most photo-RDRP methods rely on UV/visible light or photoredox catalysts (PCs), which require complex multistep synthesis. Herein, we present the first example of fully oxygen-tolerant red/NIR-light-mediated photoinduced atom transfer radical polymerization (photo-ATRP) in a high-throughput manner under biologically relevant conditions. The method uses commercially available methylene blue (MB⁺) as the PC and [X-Cu^II/TPMA]⁺ (TPMA = tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine) complex as the deactivator. The mechanistic study revealed that MB⁺ undergoes a reductive quenching cycle in the presence of the TPMA ligand used in excess. The formed semireduced MB (MB^•) sustains polymerization by regenerating the [Cu^I/TPMA]⁺ activator and together with [X-Cu^II/TPMA]⁺ provides control over the polymerization. This dual catalytic system exhibited excellent oxygen tolerance, enabling polymerizations with high monomer conversions (>90%) in less than 60 min at low volumes (50-250 μL) and high-throughput synthesis of a library of well-defined polymers and DNA-polymer bioconjugates with narrow molecular weight distributions (<i>Đ</i> < 1.30) in an open-air 96-well plate. In addition, the broad absorption spectrum of MB⁺ allowed ATRP to be triggered under UV to NIR irradiation (395-730 nm). This opens avenues for the integration of orthogonal photoinduced reactions. Finally, the MB⁺/Cu catalysis showed good biocompatibility during polymerization in the presence of cells, which expands the potential applications of this method.