Carbon dot-based artificial light-harvesting systems with sequential energy transfer and white light emission for photocatalysis

In this work, we designed and synthesized cationic carbon dots (CDs) with a size distribution of 1.6- 3.7 nm, which exhibited dark blue fluorescence in the aqueous solution. Based on its excellent luminescence properties, we used it as an energy donor to construct a sequential artificial light-harvesting system (LHS) by employing the energy-matching dyes eosin Y disodium salt (EY) and sulforhodamine 101 (SR101), which could regulate the white light emission (Commission Internationale de l & apos;Eclairage (CIE) coordinate: (0.30, 0.31)) with the energy transfer efficiency (phi ET) of 53.9% and 20.0%. Moreover, a single -step artificial LHS with white light emission (0.32, 0.28) can be constructed directly using CDs and dye solvent 43 (SR) with phi ET and antenna effect (AE) of 48.8% and 6.5, respectively. More importantly, CDs-based artificial LHSs were firstly used in photocatalytic of alpha-bromoacetophenone, with a yield of 90%. This work not only provides a new strategy for constructing CDs-based LHSs, but also opens up a new application for further applying the energy harvested in CDs-based LHSs to the field of the aqueous solution photocatalysis. (c) 2024 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.