Spectroscopic, electrochemical and electrocolorimetric properties of novel 2-(2′-pyridyl)-1H-benzimidazole appended bay-substituted perylene diimide triads

In this study, four new perylene diimide (PDI) derivatives incorporating 2-(2'-pyridyl)-1H-benzimidazole (2PBI) chromophores at the imide positions, in which 1 bearing non-bay-substituted perylene core, and those having four substituents at 1,6,7,12-bay positions of the perylene core, namely 2 bearing electron-withdrawing chlorine atoms, 3 bearing electron-donating 4-methoxyphenoxy groups and 4 bearing non-electron-donating 4-tert-butylphenoxy groups, respectively were synthesized and fully characterized by FT-IR, H-1 NMR, C-13 NMR, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry and UV/Vis spectroscopy. The thermal properties were measured by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) which showed that the materials (1-4) are thermally very stable (T-d > 450 degrees C). DFT was performed for geometry optimizations, and TDDFT was used to compare the calculated and the experimental UV/Vis electronic spectra at the B3LYP/6-311 G(d) level. Detailed measurements were carried out by the use of electroanalytical, spectroscopic and colorimetric techniques in order to understand redox natures, color changes and optoelectronic characters of the novel compounds. These 2PBI-functionalized PDI triads showed reversible reduction processes, chemically stable reduced species and considerably low HOMO-LUMO band gaps, as the new worthy members of photoactive charge transport materials for optoelectronic and photovoltaic systems. In addition, with distinct color changes associated with their redox processes in the solution, these new triads displayed great capacity for application in electrochromic devices. The emission maxima of the compounds were found to be red shifted in the solid state.