Conjugated polymers have attracted much interest as visible-light-active heterogeneous photocatalysts due to their advantage of easy-tune properties. Relying on the structure of conjugated polymer may have a wettability in the specific solvent, which limits potential application areas. Structurally designed conjugated polymers with polyelectrolytes have tunable wettability by exchangeable counter anion to a wide range of solvents. However, fine dispersion in the reaction solvent may generate the low recyclability of the conjugated polymer nanoparticles from the solvent. Herein, we report the design of magnetic conjugated polymer (MCP) nanoparticles consisting of conjugated polyelectrolytes and iron oxide nanoparticles in order to obtain tunable wettability in diverse solvents and easily regenerate nanoparticles by magnetic separation. MCP with the variation of counter anions provides the possibility to screen the wettability in diverse solvents with a fine dispersion. By the choice of counter anions, the photoactivity of MCP could be demonstrated in aqueous and organic systems. MCP particles decorated with bromide anion (MCP[Br]) had a hydrophilic surface and were tested for tetracycline photodegradation reaction, showing a high removal efficiency of up to 80% for 2 h. In contrast, MCPs with hydrophobic tetrafluoroborate (MCP[BF<sub>4</sub>]) and hexafluorophosphate (MCP[PF<sub>6</sub>]) were well dispersed in organic solvents, thus tested for the photooxidative coupling reaction of benzylamine into benzylidenebenzylamine in acetonitrile. The conversion efficiency was 100% at 2 h. By virtue of their magnetic properties, MCPs could be recovered from the reaction solvents by simple magnetic separation, and collected photocatalysts could be used for repeated cycles. We demonstrated the MCPs having tunable wettability in solvents by a simple anion exchange protocol. The dispersibility of conjugated polymers in solvents could be controlled by the counter anions, allowing the optimization of versatile photocatalytic reactions with enhanced efficiency.

Magnetic conjugated polymer nanoparticles with tunable wettability for photocatalysis

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