“On Water” Effect for Green Click Reaction: Spontaneous Polymerization of Activated Alkyne with “Inert” Aromatic Amine in Aqueous Media

Organic reactions in water have attracted great atten-tion due to their advantages such as unique reactionperformance and environmental friendliness. Organicreactions as well as polymerizations in aqueous mediahave been extensively investigated, and so far, therehas  been  a  massive  amount  of  reporting  aboutpolymerizations in water. However, reports about clickpolymerization in water have been rare. Herein, clickpolymerization  of  activated  alkyne  and  aromaticamine in aqueous media is developed. The“on water”effect facilitates polymerization in aqueous media bet-ter  than  in  organic  solvents,  and  its  mechanism  isdeciphered through experimental data and theoreticalcalculations. Water participates in the reaction andreduces the energy barrier to some extent. Besides,polymerization makes it possible for aromatic aminewith low reactivity to be linked. By using this strategy,polymers with high molecular weights can be obtainedin high yields (up to 95.4%). They show good thermalstability and high refractivity. They can be photode-graded. The polymers with tetraphenylethylene moie-ties show aggregation-induced emission and can beused as materials for generating photopatterns andvisualizing agents for specific staining of lysosome inliving cells.