Xylindein: Naturally Produced Fungal Compound for Sustainable (Opto)electronics

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Organic Electronics
• Biomaterials

Background:

• Organic semiconductors offer cost-effective and tunable optoelectronic solutions.
• Natural product-derived pigments demonstrate remarkable stability and performance.
• Fungi-derived pigments remain largely unexplored for semiconductor applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the optical and electronic properties of xylindein, a fungi-derived pigment.
• Evaluate xylindein's potential as an organic semiconductor material.
• Examine the effects of blending xylindein with PMMA and CNC on its properties.

Main Methods:

• Density functional theory (DFT) for tautomer structure and property analysis.
• Optical absorption spectroscopy to study pigment behavior.
• Fabrication and characterization of xylindein films and blends for electronic measurements.

Main Results:

• Xylindein exists in two tautomeric forms, with DFT confirming their structures and properties.
• Significant pigment aggregation was observed in polar solvents and films due to hydrogen bonding.
• High photostability and electron mobility (up to 0.4 cm²/Vs) were measured in amorphous xylindein films.
• Thermally activated charge transport and photoresponse with activation energies of ~0.3 eV and ~0.2 eV, respectively.
• Xylindein:PMMA blends showed comparable performance to pristine films, while Xylindein:CNC blends had reduced conductivity.

Conclusions:

• Xylindein is a promising, sustainable organic semiconductor derived from fungi.
• Its inherent properties, including photostability and charge transport, are suitable for optoelectronics.
• Blending with PMMA preserves performance, but CNC blending requires further optimization for uniform distribution.