A novel substitution reaction of perylene bisimides with Ph2PLi at the α-position

Abstract

A novel substitution reaction of perylene bisimides has been developed. The Ph₂PO group was attached to the PBI core at the α-position instead of the usual bay position. This substitution kept the high fluorescence of the PBI dyes and caused the adjacent proton at the bay position and a tertiary proton at the cyclohexyl group to be shifted significantly in the ¹H-NMR spectra.