Polymers and dyes: Developments and applications

Abstract

Amongst functional macromolecules, the combination of polymers and dyes is a research field of great potential with regard to high-performance materials. Accordingly, colored polymers have become increasingly important as materials for miscellaneous technical applications in recent years while also being a major part of everyday life. For instance, dye-containing polymers are nowadays widely applied in medicine, painting industries, analytics and gas separation processes. Since these applications are obviously connected to the dye's nature, which is incorporated into the corresponding polymers, the affinity of certain polymers to dyes is exploited in wastewater work-ups after (textile) dyeing procedures. In this review, we wish to point out the great importance of dye-containing polymers, with a comprehensive scope and a focus on azo, triphenylmethane, indigoid, perylene and anthraquinone dyes. Since a large number of synthetic approaches towards the preparation of such materials can be found in the literature, an elaborated overview of different preparation techniques is given as well.