Radiation curing is a well-established technology, providing numerous technical and economic benefits in applications such as coatings, printing inks, adhesives or electronic materials. Besides the continuous improvement of these conventional applications, recent developments are aimed at the use of this technology for novel applications providing added value beyond simple curing.Most applications are based on radical or cationic photopolymerization processes. While radical and cationic photoinitiators are known since many years, useful photolatent base derivatives have been introduced only recently and are still much less used than the conventional photoinitiators. However, the scope of possible applications of these photolatent catalysts is currently intensively exploited. In fact, these compounds considerably extend the type of materials available for light-controlled crosslinking reactions, as it has recently been demonstrated by several new applications.This papers aims at discussing some of these new developments. An example is the concomitant base-catalyzed crosslinking of organic and inorganic materials, resulting in the formation of well-defined inorganic nanoparticles in an organic matrix. By the appropriate selection of organic and inorganic precursors, cured materials with outstanding mechanical or optical properties can be produced.Another interesting approach is the combination of photobase catalysis and radical polymerization. This concept can be used in a two-step process for the design of materials with controlled surface properties. In another application the photogenerated base is used as a catalyst for a thermal redox process that can initiate radical polymerization. Since in contrast to radicals, the photogenerated base is a long-living species, this concept can be used to overcome limitations of conventional radiation curing processes, such as curing in regions not directly attainable by light.Combined with the inherent high spatiotemporal control of phototriggered reactions, these new approaches based on photobase technologies open an access to a large variety of new materials with outstanding properties.

Photobase technology: A versatile tool for the preparation of new materials

248th National Meeting (2014)

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