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Updated: Jul 2, 2025
A Novel Technique for Generating and Observing Chemiluminescence in a Biological Setting
Published on: March 9, 2017
Electrochemiluminescence of iridium(III)/ruthenium(II) complexes with naphthyl tags in solutions and host-guest thin
Weiyu Qu1, Xinrui Yang1, Xiaojin Huang1
1Collaborative Innovation Center of Biomedical Functional Materials and Key Laboratory of Biofunctional Materials of Jiangsu Province, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China. guowl@njnu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Herein we report electrochemiluminescence (ECL) generation from three new iridium(III)/ruthenium(II) (Ir(III)/Ru(II)) complexes with naphthyl (nap) tags in solutions and host-guest thin films. In comparison with its parent structure, the addition of a nap tag to [4-(2-naphthalenyl)-1,10-phenanthroline]bis(2,2'-bipyridine)ruthenium(II) results in a 6.1-fold enhancement in the ECL efficiency. Moreover, the nap tag enables the non-covalent immobilization of Ir(III)/Ru(II) complexes via host-guest interactions. Therefore, a molecular thin film was constructed by hydrophobic effects between the cavity of β-cyclodextrin and the nap tags, which emits stable and strong ECL emission in the presence of tri-n-propylamine (TPrA). These results give a mechanistic insight into ECL generation from (Ir(III)/Ru(II)) complexes with host-guest recognition tags and may help in the development of host-guest thin film-based ECL sensors.
