Room-Temperature Phosphorescent Polymer Composite Materials with Nacre-Mimetic Structures

Organic room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials have significant application potential in anticounterfeiting and biological imaging due to their large Stokes shifts and long phosphorescence lifetimes. Conventional RTP materials, which typically contain aromatic structures, often involve complex preparation processes and exhibit limited biocompatibility. In this work, a series of nontraditional intrinsic cluster-emitting polymeric materials with RTP properties were developed by utilizing strong ionic bonds and spatial confinement effects. Specifically, RTP-emitting derivatives of poly(maleic anhydride-<i>alt</i>-vinyl acetate) (PMV) were obtained via alkaline hydrolysis. The introduction of montmorillonite (MMT) enabled the construction of a nacre-mimetic structure through electrostatic interactions and ionic cross-linking between the layered inorganic framework of MMT and ionic sites on polymer chains, combined with the spatial confinement effect of MMT. By optimizing the reaction conditions, the resulting materials show improved photophysical properties, with a maximum phosphorescence lifetime of 30.5 ms and a maximum quantum yield of 16.09%. This study provides an alternative strategy for developing high-performance nontraditional luminescent polymers that do not require aromatic structures or heavy atoms.