Synthesis, characterization and fluorescence quenching of water-soluble cationic conjugated polymers

Abstract

Water-soluble conjugated polyelectrolytes have attracted increasing attention recently due to their potential applications as high-sensitive fluorescent biosensors. However, the influence of the physical and chemical properties of these WSCPs on the quenching sensitivity is still a major concern that retards their application as biosensors. The aim of this thesis was to syntheses and characterization of novel water-soluble conjugated polyelectrolytes and to study the structure-quenching and environment-quenching relationship of those conjugated polyelectrolytes as biosensors. In all, many water-soluble cationic ammonium-functionalized poly(p-phneylenevinylene) and poly(p-phenyleneethynylene) derivatives were synthesized through Gilch and Wittig reaction and Heck reaction respectively, and characterized by various modern techniques. The relationships of their optical properties and quenching behaviors with molecular structures, polymer concentrations, anionic saturated polymers and pH values were highly investigated and some modified theories were proposed to explain those quenching behaviors.