Promotion of Förster Resonance Energy Transfer in a Saponite Clay Containing Luminescent Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane and Rhodamine Dye

Abstract

A new hybrid photostable saponite clay with embedded donor-acceptor dyes was prepared and characterized in this work. The saponite is intercalated with a luminescent polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane, which transfers the photoexcitation energy directly to an acceptor dye (rhodamine B). The obtained composite material was characterized by means of XRD, TEM microscopy, and UV/Vis and photoluminescence spectroscopy. A physicochemical study showed that the system behaved as an efficient Förster resonance energy transfer pair, owing to the very good spectral overlap of donor emission (λem =510-540 nm) and acceptor absorption in the λ=530-570 nm range. The hybrid material represents the first example of a photonic antenna based on a synthetic saponite clay and can be considered a step forward in the search for new, efficient, and stable materials suitable for light-harvesting applications.

Supramolecular Organization in Confined Nanospaces

“…The idea is to transfer to modern materials the environmental resilience and other interesting properties of ancient materials, like Roman cements or the Blue Maya pigment, typically based on minerals. Indeed inclusion compounds of engineered clays are beginning to show actual potential as eco‐friendly functional materials . Such progress was also fostered by modeling studies – that suggested, for example, to contrast the worsening in the mechanical properties of a clay (caused by the incorporation of dyes) via the co‐adsorption of surfactants in the interlayer space of the clay .…”

Combined solid-state NMR, FT-IR and computational studies on layered and porous materials

“…110 Intercalation compounds are a class of extremely flexible materials because the appropriate choice of host and guest species results in the possibility to tune their final properties, thus extending their potential applications to various technological fields such as heterogeneous catalysis, biomedicine, polymer science and environmental protection. [111][112][113][114][115] The study of intercalation compounds started some ten years ago, and represents now an established specific domain of solid-state research and materials sciences. The knowledge of these solids have been largely widespread through the publication of several books, reviews and even through the organisation of specific meeting and conferences.…”

Enhancement of the Luminescence Properties of Eu (III) Containing Paramagnetic Saponite Clays

“…The results obtained from the photoluminescence measurements were further confirmed by the analysis of the parameters that describe the efficiency (EEnT) and the constant rate (kEnT) of the energy transfer process between the ligand and the lanthanide ions, as presented in Equations ( 1) and (2). [36,37,50,60,61]: The results obtained from the photoluminescence measurements were further confirmed by the analysis of the parameters that describe the efficiency (E EnT ) and the constant rate (k EnT ) of the energy transfer process between the ligand and the lanthanide ions, as presented in Equations ( 1) and (2). [36,37,50,60,61]:…”

“…[36,37,50,60,61]: The results obtained from the photoluminescence measurements were further confirmed by the analysis of the parameters that describe the efficiency (E EnT ) and the constant rate (k EnT ) of the energy transfer process between the ligand and the lanthanide ions, as presented in Equations ( 1) and (2). [36,37,50,60,61]:…”