Researchers at the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics have successfully fabricated a new class of liquid fluorescent organic salts via a strategy of ionic liquidization.

Among them, most salts are liquids at room temperature. fluorescent low melting salts (FLMSs) 1–7 show green photoluminescence characteristics in both the solution and pure liquid states under UV irradiation. Furthermore, they also display remarkable solvent dependent photoluminescence.

The new strategy of ‘‘ionic liquidized materials’’ endows the target FLMS materials with improved properties such as lower melting point, enhanced solubility, controlled hydrophilic/hydrophobic behaviour, optional solution based liquid-state fluorescence, etc.

This will offer new opportunities for the preparation and application of liquid fluorescent materials.

As a fascinating class of emissive materials, fluorescent organic salts (FOSs) have received considerable attention in the fields of chemistry, materials, and life science. Currently, a new trend of FOSs studies has focused on the discovery and development of novel fluorescent low melting salts (FLMSs) with liquid-state fluorescent properties, which can be used as a luminescent fluid even at room temperature. But so far, the reported FLMSs are rather limited, mainly due to the difficulty in constructing efficient fluorescent chromophores in the target FLMSs. Thus, the development of novel liquid FLMSs with special properties and strong fluorescent performance is highly desirable.

The work has been financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation China. The findings have been published in J. Mater. Chem. (J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 16335–16338).

J. Mater. Chem.Paper

Photograph of FLMSs 1–8 in methanolic solution (10^-5 M) under irradiation from a 365 nm lamp (5 W).