Zebing Zeng

Zethrenes, Extended p -Quinodimethanes, and Periacenes with a Singlet Biradical Ground State

Researchers have studied polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) for more than 100 years, and most PAHs in the neutral state reported so far have a closed-shell electronic configuration in the ground state. However, recent studies have revealed that specific types of polycyclic hydrocarbons (PHs) could have a singlet biradical ground state and exhibit unique electronic, optical, and magnetic activities. With the appropriate stabilization, these new compounds could prove useful as molecular materials for organic electronics, nonlinear optics, organic spintronics, organic photovoltaics, and energy storage devices. However, before researchers can use these materials to design new devices, they need better methods to synthesize these molecules and a better understanding of the fundamental relationship between the structure and biradical character of these compounds and their physical properties. Their biradical character makes these compounds difficult to synthesize. These compounds are also challenging to physically characterize and require the use of various experimental techniques and theoretic methods to comprehensively describe their unique properties. In this Account, we will discuss the chemistry and physics of three types of PHs with a significant singlet biradical character, primarily developed in our group. These structures are zethrenes, Z-shaped quinoidal hydrocarbons; hydrocarbons that include a proaromatic extended p-quinodimethane unit; and periacenes, acenes fused in a peri-arrangement. We used a variety of synthetic methods to prepare these compounds and stabilized them using both thermodynamic and kinetic approaches. We probed their ground-state structures by electronic absorption, NMR, ESR, SQUID, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray crystallography and also performed density functional theory calculations. We investigated the physical properties of these PHs using various experimental methods such as one-photon absorption, two-photon absorption, transient absorption spectroscopy, electrochemistry, and spectroelectrochemistry. These systematic studies revealed that aromaticity played a very important role in determining their singlet biradical character, which is critically related to both their physical properties and their chemical reactivity. In particular, we found that Clars aromatic sextet rule, which is useful for the closed-shell PAHs, can also predict the relative biradical character of benzenoid PH-based singlet biradicaloids. Other factors, such as structural flexibility of the biradical and quinoid resonance forms and the participation of the substitution in the π-conjugation, also influence the biradical character. These molecular materials demonstrate a number of unique properties such as near-infrared absorption, redox amphotericity, large two-photon absorption cross section, short excited state lifetime, stimuli-responsive magnetic activity, and singlet fission, which suggests promise for future applications.

Discerning the Chemistry in Individual Organelles with Small‐Molecule Fluorescent Probes

Principle has it that even the most advanced super-resolution microscope would be futile in providing biological insight into subcellular matrices without well-designed fluorescent tags/probes. Developments in biology have increasingly been boosted by advances of chemistry, with one prominent example being small-molecule fluorescent probes that not only allow cellular-level imaging, but also subcellular imaging. A majority, if not all, of the chemical/biological events take place inside cellular organelles, and researchers have been shifting their attention towards these substructures with the help of fluorescence techniques. This Review summarizes the existing fluorescent probes that target chemical/biological events within a single organelle. More importantly, organelle-anchoring strategies are described and emphasized to inspire the design of new generations of fluorescent probes, before concluding with future prospects on the possible further development of chemical biology.

Stable Tetrabenzo-Chichibabin’s Hydrocarbons: Tunable Ground State and Unusual Transition between Their Closed-Shell and Open-Shell Resonance Forms

Stable open-shell polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are of fundamental interest due to their unique electronic, optical, and magnetic properties and promising applications in materials sciences. Chichibabins hydrocarbon as a classical open-shell PAH has been investigated for a long time. However, most of the studies are complicated by their inherent high reactivity. In this work, two new stable benzannulated Chichibabins hydrocarbons 1-CS and 2-OS were prepared, and their electronic structure and geometry in the ground state were studied by various experiments (steady-state and transient absorption spectra, NMR, electron spin resonance (ESR), superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), FT Raman, X-ray crystallographic etc.) and density function theory (DFT) calculations. 1-CS and 2-OS exhibited tunable ground states, with a closed-shell quinoidal structure for 1-CS and an open-shell biradical form for 2-OS. Their corresponding excited-state forms 1-OS and 2-CS were also chemically approached and showed different decay processes. The biradical 1-OS displayed an unusually slow decay to the ground state (1-CS) due to a large energy barrier (95 ± 2.5 kJ/mol) arising from severe steric hindrance during the transition from an orthogonal biradical form to a butterfly-like quinoidal form. The quick transition from the quinoidal 2-CS (excited state) to the orthogonal biradicaloid 2-OS (ground state) happened during the attempted synthesis of 2-CS. Compounds 1-CS and 2-OS can be oxidized into stable dications by FeCl(3) and/or concentrated H(2)SO(4). The open-shell 2-OS also exhibited a large two-photon absorption (TPA) cross section (760 GM at 1200 nm).

Pushing extended p-quinodimethanes to the limit: Stable tetracyano-oligo(N-annulated perylene)quinodimethanes with tunable ground states

p-Quinodimethane (p-QDM) is a fundamental building block for the design of π-conjugated systems with low band gap and open-shell biradical character. However, synthesis of extended p-QDMs has usually suffered from their intrinsic high reactivity and poor solubility. In this work, benzannulation together with terminal cyano-substitution was demonstrated to be an efficient approach for the synthesis of a series of soluble and stable tetracyano-oligo(N-annulated perylene)quinodimethanes nPer-CN (n = 1-6), with the longest molecule having 12 para-linked benzenoid rings! The geometry and electronic structures of these oligomers were investigated by steady-state and transient absorption spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, electron spin resonance, superconducting quantum interference device, and FT Raman spectroscopy assisted by density functional theory calculations. They showed tunable ground states, varying from a closed-shell quinoidal structure for monomer, to a singlet biradical for dimer, trimer, and tetramer, and to a triplet biradical for pentamer and hexamer. Large two-photon absorption cross-section values were observed in the near-infrared range, which also exhibited a clear chain-length dependence.

Dibenzoheptazethrene Isomers with Different Biradical Characters: An Exercise of Clar’s Aromatic Sextet Rule in Singlet Biradicaloids

Clars aromatic sextet rule has been widely used for the prediction of the reactivity and stability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with a closed-shell electronic configuration. Recent advances in open-shell biradicaloids have shown that the number of aromatic sextet rings plays an important role in determination of their ground states. In order to test the validity of this rule in singlet biradicaloids, the two soluble and stable dibenzoheptazethrene isomers DBHZ1 and DBHZ2 were prepared by different synthetic approaches and isolated in crystalline form. These two molecules have different numbers of aromatic sextet rings in their respective biradical resonance forms and thus are expected to exhibit varied singlet biradical character. This assumption was verified by different experimental methods, including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), electron spin resonance (ESR), superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), steady-state and transient absorption spectroscopy (TA), and X-ray crystallographic analysis, assisted by unrestricted symmetry-broken density functional theory (DFT) calculations. DBHZ2, with more aromatic sextet rings in the biradical form, was demonstrated to possess greater biradical character than DBHZ1; as a result, DBHZ2 exhibited an intense one-photon absorption (OPA) in the near-infrared region (λabs(max) = 804 nm) and a large two-photon absorption (TPA) cross-section (σ((2))max = 2800 GM at 1600 nm). This investigation together with previous studies indicates that Clars aromatic sextet rule can be further extended to the singlet biradicaloids to predict their ground states and singlet biradical characters.

Selective Visualization of the Endogenous Peroxynitrite in an Inflamed Mouse Model by a Mitochondria-Targetable Two-Photon Ratiometric Fluorescent Probe

Peroxynitrite (ONOO-) is a kind of reactive oxygen species (ROS) with super activity of oxidization and nitration, and overproduction of ONOO- is associated with pathogenesis of many diseases. Thus, accurate detection of ONOO- with high sensitivity and selectivity is imperative for elucidating its functions in health or disease states. Herein we for the first time present a new two-photon ratiometric fluorescent ONOO- probe (MITO-CC) based on FRET mechanism by combining rational design strategy and dye-screening approach. MITO-CC, with fast response rate (within 20 s), excellent sensitivity (detection limit = 11.30 nM) and outstanding selectivity toward ONOO-, was successfully applied to ratiometric detection of endogenous ONOO- produced by HepG2/RAW264.7 cells and further employed for imaging oxidative stress in an inflamed mouse model. Therefore, probe MITO-CC could be a potential biological tool to explore the roles of ONOO- under different physiological and pathological settings.

Tetracyanoquaterrylene and Tetracyanohexarylenequinodimethanes with Tunable Ground States and Strong Near‐Infrared Absorption

Biradicaloids based on quinoidal rylenes! Soluble and stable tetracyanoquaterrylenequinodimethane (QR-CN) and tetracyanohexarylenequinodimethane (HR-CN) were synthesized. QR-CN has a closed-shell quinoidal structure in the ground state, whereas HR-CN has a singlet biradical ground state. Both compounds showed very strong one-photon and two-photon absorption in the NIR range

Benzenoid Polycyclic Hydrocarbons with an Open–Shell Biradical Ground State

This Focus Review describes the recent progress, from both theoretical and experimental perspectives, on four types of benzenoid polycyclic hydrocarbons with an open-shell biradical ground state: 1) acenes, 2) periacenes and anthenes, 3) zethrenes, and 4) extended p-quinodimethane derivatives. These interesting molecules have provided excellent platforms to investigate the electronic structures of nanographenes and represent promising candidates for the next generation of molecule-based materials in the field of electronics, spintronics, and non-linear optics. The focus of this article will be put on the structural significance, the physical properties relevant to the open-shell electronic configurations, and potential applications.

A double network gel as low cost and easy recycle adsorbent: Highly efficient removal of Cd(II) and Pb(II) pollutants from wastewater.

A high strength of polyving alcohol/polyacrylic acid double network gel (PVA/PAA gel) adsorbent was successfully prepared by a simple two-step method in this study. The gel adsorbent possessed the advantages of low cost and high adsorptivity for heavy metals in solution. The maximum uptake capacities of PVA/PAA gel were 194.99 mg/g for Pb(II) and 115.88 mg/g for Cd(II) inferred from the Langmuir model at 303 K. At the concentration levels of Pb(II)<150 mg/L and Cd(II)<100mg/L, the Pb(II) and Cd(II) could be completely adsorbed, showing a great potential of removing heavy metals from wastewater. Simultaneously, the PVA/PAA gel adsorbent exhibited an excellent reusability. Even in the fifth cycle, the removal efficiencies of both Pb(II) and Cd(II) remained nearly 100%. Significantly, the gel adsorbent displayed a satisfactory performance of removing heavy metals in actual industrial effluent. The results reveal that the double network gel can be considered as a potential candidate for practical application.

Push-Pull Type Oligo(N-annulated perylene)quinodimethanes: Chain Length and Solvent-Dependent Ground States and Physical Properties.

Research on stable open-shell singlet diradicaloids recently became a hot topic because of their unique optical, electronic, and magnetic properties and promising applications in materials science. So far, most reported singlet diradicaloid molecules have a symmetric structure, while asymmetric diradicaloids with an additional contribution of a dipolar zwitterionic form to the ground state were rarely studied. In this Article, a series of new push-pull type oligo(N-annulated perylene)quinodimethanes were synthesized. Their chain length and solvent-dependent ground states and physical properties were systematically investigated by various experimental methods such as steady-state and transient absorption, two-photon absorption, X-ray crystallographic analysis, electron spin resonance, superconducting quantum interference device, Raman spectroscopy, and electrochemistry. It was found that with extension of the chain length, the diradical character increases while the contribution of the zwitterionic form to the ground state becomes smaller. Because of the intramolecular charge transfer character, the physical properties of this push-pull system showed solvent dependence. In addition, density functional theory calculations on the diradical character and Hirshfeld charge were conducted to understand the chain length and solvent dependence of both symmetric and asymmetric systems. Our studies provided a comprehensive understanding on the fundamental structure- and environment-property relationships in the new asymmetric diradicaloid systems.