Abstract: Fatty acid europium complexes were synthesized with hexanoic acid, octanoic acid, lauric acid or stearic acid as the ligands. The polyethylene(PE), polypropylene(PP) or polystyrene(PS) photoluminescence composites doped with europium complexes were prepared by the Haake torque rheometer. The influences of ligands, europium complexes and polymer matrixes on the appearance, transparency and luminescence properties of the composites were investigated. These fatty acid europium complexes and their composites emit strong characteristic luminescence of europium ions 5D0→7F1 and 5D0→7F2 respectively, at 593, 617 nm under ultraviolet light excitation. The luminescence of europium complexes and their composites are less affected by the chain length of the fatty acid. The PP or PE composites emit only characteristic red fluorescence of the Eu3+ ions under ultraviolet light, while a rosy fluorescence emission of the PS composites is demonstrated to arise from a combination of strong red light-emitting of the Eu3+ ions and weak blue-violet light-emitting of the PS matrix.

Key words: fatty acids, europium complexes, general resin, doping, composite, photoluminescence