Coronene Doped Rubber-Toughened Plastics: Easily Photoactivatable, Visible Light Excitable, Stress-Whitening Quenching and Thermally Recoverable Ultralong Phosphorescence

If rubber-toughened plastics can effectively stabilize organic triplet exciton radiation, then a new class of room temperature phosphorescent (RTP) polymers can be developed. In the current work, the outstanding triplet generating and radiating coronene (Cor) is doped into HIPS, ABS, and MBS, and the thermoplastic processed sheets emit bright and ultralong RTP with lifetimes of 3.200–3.700 s after being excited by 365 nm light. Under the impact of mechanical forces, the stress whitening region no longer emits RTP afterglow, whereas heat healing can recover afterglow, implying the potential application in detecting material damage and repair and indicating that polymer cohesion and density remarkably affect triplet thermal and oxygen stability. We further reveal that rubber-plastic secondary “core-shell” structures can synergistically inhibit triplet thermal deactivation and oxygen quenching, and we also confirm that these Cor/polymers show visible light excitable RTP properties. This work represents a breakthrough advancement in RTP materials and concepts.