Composite nanofibers doped with a phosphorescent Re(I) complex having restricted conjugation plane in its diamine ligand: Preparation, characterization, photophysical property and oxygen-sensing performance

•An oxadiazole-containing diamine ligand and its Re(I) complex were studied.•Crystal structure, photophysical property and electronic nature were studied.•It owned a large conjugation plane favoring oxygen sensing.•It was doped into a polymer matrix to construct composite fibers.•A maximum sensitivity of 7.88 with short response time of 11 s was realized.

In this paper, we report a Re(I) complex of Re(CO)3(Cl-PYO)Br, where Cl-PYO stands for 2-(4-chlorophenyl)-5-(pyridin-2-yl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole, including its synthesis, identification, molecular structure, theoretical calculation and photophysical character. Re(CO)3(Cl-PYO)Br is found to be a yellow emitter with long excited state lifetime in pure N2 atmosphere. Theoretical calculation result suggests that this emission comes from a triplet metal-to-ligand-charge-transfer excited state. By doping Re(CO)3(Cl-PYO)Br into a polymer supporting matrix of poly(vinylpyrrolidone), the emission of the resulted composite materials is found to be sensitive towards various oxygen concentrations. The maximum sensitivity is obtained to be 7.88. Owing to the porous structure of fibrous poly(vinylpyrrolidone) matrix, a short response time of 11 s towards molecular oxygen is also realized with high photostability.

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