Recently, Professor Peng Feng's research group from the School of Materials Science and Technology has made new progress in organic room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials. The research paper entitled "Facile preparation of full-color tunable room temperature phosphorescence cellulose via clickchemistry" was published in the Top journal "Small" (IF=13.3 ) in the area of materials, and was selected as the latest hot issue: Hot Topic: Click Chemistry of "Angew.Chem.Int.Ed.".

Sustainable long-lived room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials with color-tunable afterglows are attractive but rarely reported. Here, cellulose is reconstructed by directed redox to afford ample active hydroxyl groups and water-solubility; arylboronic acids with various π conjugations can be facilely anchored to reconstructed cellulose via click chemistry within 1 min in pure water, resulting in full-color tunable RTP cellulose. The rigid environment provided by the B─O covalent bonds and hydrogen bonds can stabilize the triplet excitons, thus the target cellulose displays outstanding RTP performances with the lifetime of 2.67 s, phosphorescence quantum yield of 9.37%, and absolute afterglow luminance of 348 mcd m−2. Furthermore, due to the formation of various emissive species, the smart RTP cellulose shows excitation- and time-dependent afterglows. Taking advantages of sustainability, ultralong lifetime, and full-color tunable afterglows, et al, the environmentally friendly RTP cellulose is successfully used for nontoxic afterglow inks, delay lighting, and afterglow display.

Gao Qian, a doctoral student in the School of Materials Science and Technology, is the first author of the paper. Lv Baozhong and Professor Peng Feng are the co-corresponding authors. Beijing Key Laboratory of Lignocellulosic Chemistry of Beijing Forestry University is the signature unit of the first author.

This work was supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (32225034), National Natural Science Foundation of China (22308028), State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering (202308), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (QNTD202302, BLX202131).


Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202309131


Hot topic: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1002/(ISSN)1521-3773.hottopic-clickchemistry