AIE Effect by Oxygen Clustering in Vegetable Oil-Based Polymers

Vegetable oil has been widely used to synthesize monomers and polymers in different fields. Some authors have found different polymers in maleinized vegetable oil; however, they have not described the luminescent properties of the polymers in an intensive way. This work aimed to synthesize new polymers from macadamia oil using diethylene glycol and glycerol as crosslinkers and their characterization The results obtained by spectroscopic analyses confirmed the incorporation of anhydride, as well as the reactions for the final polymers. Results from UV-Vis showed that maleinized macadamia oil presented an aggregation-induced emission effect with solvatochromic effect with absorption at 201.6 nm (ethanol) and 241.8 nm (chloroform), which was corroborated by theoretical calculations. Moreover, the luminescent property exhibited by both obtained polymers was kept even after the swelling test, and powdering the samples. Therefore, these polymers, synthetized in a fast way and without catalyst, open a new field of renewable and sustainable materials with luminescent properties that can be applied in technological fields, such as solar cells and fluorescent sensors.