Water Treatment for Long-Lived Room Temperature Phosphorescent Adhesives

Polymer materials with long-lived room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) are promising because they are easy to process to fit broad luminescent events. However, these systems typically rely on polar groups to form hydrogen or ionic bonds to confine chromophores to produce long-lived RTP. Such interactions are susceptible to moisture, which greatly limits the stability of such materials and their luminescent signals. Here, long-lived RTP adhesives are developed by random copolymerization of a trace amount of chromophores into polyacrylic acid. For these polymers, a water-induced polymer reorganization can be observed at room temperature to form protective confined regions for chromophores, resulting in an afterglow lifetime up to 3 s, with a high moisture tolerance threshold. The strategy is applicable to diverse chromophores, resulting in RTP with a wide range of tunable emission colors. Meanwhile, these polymers are soluble in water and can be used as removable adhesives. The long-lived RTP can be employed to monitor sticking status non-destructively and precisely, which can inspire the development of high-performance RTP polymers for unprecedented practical applications.