Characterization of interpenetrating polymer-like network based on polyethylene/poly(styrene-co-butylmethacrylate) (PE/P(S-co-BMA)) by non-radiative energy transfer

Preparation of labeled interpenetrating polymer-like network (IPN) composed of polyethylene and copolymer styrene and butylmethacrylate with polymerizable fluorescence probes based on phenanthrene and anthracene was described. This pair of fluorescence probes, namely (phenathrene-9-yl)methyl methacrylate and (anthracene-9-yl)methyl methacrylate, was used to explore the non-radiative energy transfer in this special polymer blend. It was demonstrated that the energy transfer between phenanthrene moiety attached to copolymer part of IPN and anthracene moiety attached to PE part of IPN occurred in rather limited extent due to micro-heterogeneous structure of this polymer blend. Fluorescence experiments with dyes attached solely to the copolymer S-BMA part of IPN indicated that these dyes were concentrated in this part of IPN. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.