Issue 23, 2023

Fluorescent carbon dots from birch leaves for sustainable electroluminescent devices

Abstract

The shift from depleting petroleum compounds to regenerating biomass as the raw material for organic semiconductors is a prerequisite if organic electronics is to become truly sustainable. Here, we report on a one-pot solvothermal synthesis of a biomass-based carbon dot (bio-CD) fluorescent semiconductor, using birch leaves as the sole raw material. These bio-CDs are highly soluble in ethanol (45 g L−1), and deliver deep-red and narrowband emission (peak wavelength = 675 nm, full width at half maximum, FWHM = 28 nm) at a high photoluminescence quantum yield of 26% in ethanol solution. Systematic structural characterization shows that molecular pheophytin a is the single fluorophore, and that this fluorophore is localized in the bulk of the bio-CD away from its polar surface. The functionality of the birch-leaf-derived bio-CDs in sustainable organic electronics is demonstrated by its employment as the printable emitter in a light-emitting electrochemical cell, which delivers narrowband deep-red luminance of 110 cd m−2, with a FWHM of 29 nm, at an external quantum efficiency of 0.29%. This study thus reveals a promising avenue for the functional benign synthesis and the practical solution-based implementation of narrowband bio-CDs in sustainable optoelectronic technologies.

Graphical abstract: Fluorescent carbon dots from birch leaves for sustainable electroluminescent devices

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 out 2023
Accepted
30 out 2023
First published
01 nov 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Green Chem., 2023,25, 9884-9895

Fluorescent carbon dots from birch leaves for sustainable electroluminescent devices

S. Tang, Y. Liu, H. Opoku, M. Gregorsson, P. Zhang, E. Auroux, D. Dang, A. Mudring, T. Wågberg, L. Edman and J. Wang, Green Chem., 2023, 25, 9884 DOI: 10.1039/D3GC03827K

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