Distinct Sustainable Carbon Nanodots Enable Free Radical Photopolymerization, Photo‐ATRP and Photo‐CuAAC Chemistry

Carbon nanodots (CDs) originating from different biomass result in different activities to sensitize photo‐ATRP and photo‐CuAAC reaction protocols with visible light. Free radical polymerization of tri(propylene glycol)diacrylate also exhibited a good efficiency using CDs in combination with an iodonium salt employing LEDs emitting either at 405 nm, 525 nm or 660 nm. Photo‐ATRP experiments confirmed controlled polymerization conditions using Cu(II) at the ppm scale resulting in dispersities between 1.06 to 1.10. Chain end fidelity was successfully provided by chain extension and block copolymerization additionally approving the living feature of polymerization using a CD synthesized from lac dye comprising olefinic moieties in the originating biomass. By global analysis, time resolved fluorescence measurements indicated the appearance of several emitting species contributing to the reactivity of the excited states. Different cytotoxic response appeared following the answer of MCF‐10A cells in a flow cytometry assay; that is 400 μg mL(−1). Thus, cell viability was greater 80 % in the case of CD‐2–CD‐5 while that of CD‐1 was close to 70 %.