Abstract
Viologen bismuthate halides generally show photochromic properties. In the present work, phenylethyl alcohol was introduced into chloro bismuthates in the hope to prepare photochromic crystalline materials and finally a photochromic inorganic-organic hybrid, (PeV)3(Bi2Cl9)2 (1), based on an in situ generated PeV2+ cation (PeV2+ = phenethylviologen = N,N′-diphenethyl-4,4′-bipyridinium), has been obtained, whose microstructure contains a discrete dimer [Bi2Cl9]3– counterion identified by single crystal X-ray diffraction. More importantly, 1 exhibits a typical photochromic behavior, which can be mainly attributed to the reversible inter-conversion between the monocation viologen radical [PeV]+• and the viologen dication [PeV]2+.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (2016J01043), the support of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M612106), Scientific Research Starting Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, Ministry of Education of China (for Dr. Jian-Di Lin), and the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences (20160025).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.