Facile syntheses of conjugated polymers for photothermal tumour therapy

Development of photothermal materials which are able to harness sunlight and convert it to thermal energy seems attractive. Besides carbon-based nanomaterials, conjugated polymers are emerging promising photothermal materials but their facile syntheses remain challenging. In this work, by modification of a CBT-Cys click condensation reaction and rational design of the starting materials, we facilely synthesize conjugated polymers poly-2-phenyl-benzobisthiazole (PPBBT) and its dihexyl derivative with good photothermal properties. Under the irradiation of either sunlight-mimicking Xe light or near-infrared laser, we verify that PPBBT has comparable photothermal heating-up speed to that of star material single-wall carbon nanotube. Moreover, PPBBT is used to fabricate water-soluble NP(PPBBT) nanoparticles which maintain excellent photothermal properties in vitro and photothermal therapy effect on the tumours exposed to laser irradiation. We envision that our synthetic method provides a facile approach to fabricate conjugated polymers for more promising applications in biomedicine or photovoltaics in the near future.