supramolecular photochemistry (rus. фотохимия, супрамолекулярная) — a section of photochemistry that studies electronic properties, structure and photochemical transformations of supramolecular systems.

Description

Photochemically active components (chromophores), when introduced into supramolecular complexes, make it possible to use the light energy to carry out such practical processes as energy transfer, photoinduced electron transfer and space division of charges, the change of redox potentials, selective binding. Those effects can be used in light conversion devices, electronic switching, energy storage, photocatalytic systems.

Chromophores are typically polyaromatic molecules - metalloporphyrins, free porphyrins, bipyridyl (Fig. 1) and its analogues. Light makes those molecules experience electronic transition, which initiates a chain of physical or chemical processes in the whole supramolecular system. Examples are: Energy transfer in artificial photoantennae (Fig. 2) or electron transfer in supramolecular donor-acceptor systems (see artificial photosynthesis).

Illustrations

<div>Fig. 1. 2,2'-bipyridyl (bipy) — chromophore, widely used in supramolecular photochemistry.</div
Fig. 1. 2,2'-bipyridyl (bipy) — chromophore, widely used in supramolecular photochemistry.
<div>Fig. 2. Dendrimer photoantenna, in which energy is transferred under the influence of light fro
Fig. 2. Dendrimer photoantenna, in which energy is transferred under the influence of light from peripheral porphyrines into the center.

Author

  • Vadim V. Eremin

Sources

  1. Steed J. W., Atwood J. L. Supramolecular Chemistry. 2nd Ed. — J. Wiley & Sons: Chichester, 2009. — 745 pp.
  2. Kozaki M., Uemoto A., Suzuki S., Okada K. // Org. Lett. 2008. V. 10, №20. P. 4477–4480.