Carbazole-fused coumarin based oxime esters (OXEs): efficient photoinitiators for sunlight driven free radical photopolymerization†

The use of sunlight to initiate free radical polymerization under air is a key challenge. Due to the associated low light intensity, usual or commercial photoinitiators are characterized by a low efficiency. In this work, seventeen carbazole-fused coumarin-based oxime esters were developed as monocomponent and photocleavable (Type I) initiators of polymerization displaying excellent light absorption properties in the visible range. Compared to the benchmark photoinitiator (diphenyl(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)phosphine oxide), some of them (namely OXE-1 and OXE-5) could show photoinitiation performance similar to or better than the reference compound upon irradiation with a LED at 405 nm. The photoinitiation mechanism of these photoinitiators is proposed, supported by theoretical calculations; the detection of CO₂ during photopolymerization was performed by means of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and the detection of radical species was performed by electron spin resonance analysis. Through direct laser writing, different objects exhibiting an excellent spatial resolution could be obtained. Parallel to the photoinitiating ability, the different photoinitiators also showed a thermal initiation behavior, meaning that these structures can serve both as thermal and photo-initiators on demand. Due to the high sensitivity of these structures to sunlight, OXE-1 and OXE-5 were also investigated as solar photoinitiators (reactive also in Central Europe during winter) and excellent monomer conversions could be obtained within one hour using a multifunctional acrylate monomer (Ebecryl 605). To the best of our knowledge, these two oxime esters constitute the first examples of sunlight activable oxime esters ever reported in the literature.