Enhancing photophysical and photochemical properties of zinc(II) phthalocyanine dyes by substitution of triptycene moieties

The symmetrical zinc(II) phthalocyanines conjugated with 9,10-dioctyl-6,7-dimethoxy-2,3-dioxytriptycene or 9,10-diundecyl-6,7-dimethoxy-2,3-dioxytriptycene moieties were synthesized in this study. These novel phthalocyanines were characterized by standard characterization techniques such as 1H-NMR, FT-IR, UV-vis, Mass and Elemental Analysis. All these phthalocyanines showed highly solubility and formed non-aggregated monomeric species in most of the organic solvents. Their photochemical properties such as singlet oxygen, and photodegradation quantum yields, and photophysical properties including fluorescence quantum yields and lifetimes were investigated in toluene. The fluorescence quenching behavior of the studied zinc(II) phthalocyanines by the addition of 1,4-benzoquinone were also described in toluene.