Using Room Temperature Phosphorescence of Gold(I) Complexes for PAHs Sensing

Abstract

The synthesis of two new phosphane-gold(I)–napthalimide complexes has been performed and characterized. The compounds present luminescent properties with denoted room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) induced by the proximity of the gold(I) heavy atom that favors intersystem crossing and triplet state population. The emissive properties of the compounds together with the planarity of their chromophore were used to investigate their potential as hosts in the molecular recognition of different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Naphthalene, anthracene, phenanthrene, and pyrene were chosen to evaluate how the size and electronic properties can affect the host:guest interactions. Stronger affinity has been detected through emission titrations for the PAHs with extended aromaticity (anthracene and pyrene) and the results have been supported by DFT calculation studies.

Aggregation of gold(i) complexes: phosphorescence vs. singlet oxygen production

“…These interactions are especially important in the resulting intra-and/or intermolecular aggregation and, together with solubility can be able to tune the luminescent properties at low solubility conditions through aggregation induced emission (AIE). [26][27][28] Regarding this, phosphanes are suitable ligands to modulate the solubility and supramolecular assemblies of gold(I) complexes. [29][30][31] Taking all these facts into consideration, in this work six new phosphane-gold(I)-4-ethynylaniline complexes (neutral and cationic) have been synthesized.…”

Heterometallic Au(I)–Cu(I) Clusters: Luminescence Studies and1O2Production

“…The synthesis of the gold­(I) complexes 1 and 2 has been carried out following a similar procedure previously used in our research group (Scheme A), − that is, the deprotonation of the terminal alkynyl moiety and the subsequent reaction with the previously synthesized Au­(pyPPh 2 )­Cl compound.…”

Mono‐ and Dinuclear Gold(I) Coumarin Complexes: Luminescence Studies and Singlet Oxygen Production

“…The development of luminescent materials is a research area of great interest in the last decades due to the large variety of applications on different fields such as electronic displays, luminescent switches, OLEDs, optical devices or sensing materials among others. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] The presence of metal atoms, and particularly, transition metal atoms, in the chemical structure of the designed luminophores is increasing attention due to the intrinsic characteristics that can offer metals regarding enhanced optical properties and chemical configuration with larger variety of coordination numbers that can easily be tuned changing completely the resulting emission with respect to their energy (emission wavelength), intensity (quantum yields) and lifetimes. In particular, heavy atoms are especially relevant on luminescence since they are also very well-known to favor the intersystem crossing (ISC) process from S 1 to T 1 excited states.…”