Photofunctional Eu/Tb hybrid material with inorganic silica covalently linking polymer chain through their double functionalization

In the context, 2-thiosalicylic acid (TSA) is modified with two crosslinking reagents (3-chloropropyltrimethoxysilane (CTPMS), 3-(triethoxysilyl)-propyl isocyanate (TESPIC)) to achieve two kinds of sulfide bridges (abbreviated as TSA-CSi and TSA-TSi, respectively). And two organic polymers (poly acrylamide (PAM) and poly ethylene glycol (PEG)) are also functionalized with TESPIC to form their polymeric silane derivatives PAMSi and PEGSi. Then series of multi-component Eu³⁺/Tb³⁺ hybrid material have been assembled with inorganic silica covalently linking organic polymer through the sulfide bridges after co-hydrolysis and co-polycondensation with the above inorganic or organic alkoxyl compounds (TSA-CSi(TSi), PAMSi(PEGSi)) and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS). These hybrid material are characterized in details to compare with the binary hybrid material without organic polymer unit, whose results reveal that the photoluminescence properties of the hybrid system are improved with the introduction of the polymer unit.