Acylstannanes: Cleavable and Highly Reactive Photoinitiators for Radical Photopolymerization at Wavelengths above 500 nm with Excellent Photobleaching Behavior

Abstract

Within this work, a novel acylstannane-based photoinitiator (PI) is presented. Tetrakis(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)stannane (1) displays outstanding properties compared to state-of-the-art acylgermane-based initiators. Most importantly, the initiator shows absorption up to 550 nm, which allows higher penetration depths, especially in highly filled photopolymers. Besides that, 1 shows extremely high photoinitiating activity towards (meth)acrylic double bonds, as well as very fast photobleaching. Furthermore, unlike many organotin compounds, 1 shows surprisingly low cytotoxicity.

Keywords: photobleaching; photoinitiators; photopolymerization; visible light.