Aggregation-Induced Emission of Platinum(II) Metallacycles and Their Ability to Detect Nitroaromatics

Two new acceptors containing platinum-carbazole (1) and platinum-triphenylamine (2) backbones with bite angles of 908 and 1208, respectively, have been synthesised and characterised. Reactions of the rigid acceptor 1 with linear dipyridyl-based donors (3 and 4) generated [4+4] self-assembled molecular squares (5 and 6), and similar treatments with acceptor 2 instead of 1 yielded [6+6] self-assembled molecular hexagons (7 and 8). The metallacycles were characterised by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy (H-1 and P-31) and ESI-MS. The geometries of the metallacycles were optimised by using the PM6 method. When aggregates of the metallacycles were formed by adding hexane solutions in dichloromethane, aggregation-induced emission was observed for metallacycles 5 and 7, and aggregation-caused quenching was observed for metallacycles 6 and 8. The formation of aggregates was verified by dynamic light scattering and TEM analyses. Macrocycles 5 and 7 are white-light emitters in THF. Moreover, their high luminescence in both solution and the solid state was utilised for the recognition of nitroaromatic explosives.