Final Report Abstract

We prepared polydiacetylenes as sensors. Monomer 2 showed photopolymerization and the resulting material showed stimuli-responsive color changes. During the investigation of the azobenzene functionalities to further improve the VOC sensing behavior of the PDA unexpected results were found. It was demonstrated that light can switch azobenzene-containing polymers from solids to liquids reversibly. This work was published in Nature Chemistry, highlighted by more than 20 media all over the world, and was cited about 100 times at the moment.

Publications

• “Photoswitching of Glass Transition Temperatures of Azobenzene-Containing Polymers Induces Reversible Solid-to-Liquid Transitions”, Nature Chemistry, 2017, 9, 145-151
  Zhou, Hongwei; Xue, Changguo; Weis, Philipp; Suzuki, Yasuhito; Huang, Shilin; Koynov, Kaloian; Auernhammer, Günter K.; Berger, Rüdiger; Butt, Hans-Jürgen & Wu, Si
  
• “Spanning the Solar Spectrum: Azopolymer Solar Thermal Fuels for Simultaneous UV and Visible Light Storage”, Adv. Energy Mater., 2017, 7, 1601622
  Saydjari, Andrew K.; Weis, Philipp & Wu, Si
  
• “Co-Assemblies of Polydiacetylenes and Metal Ions for Solvent Sensing”, Soft Matter, 2018, 14, 6929 – 6937
  Wu, Si; Pan, Libin; Huang, Youju; Yang, Ni & Zhang, Qijin