Breaking the bottleneck of organic light conversion agents: Preparation, performance evaluation and intrinsic mechanism

Molecular design of light conversion agents and various factors affecting photostability. [Display omitted] •Five dyes with different ICT effect were designed and synthesized.•TPT-DB shows excellent light conversion performance.•The factors affecting photostability were analyzed in detail.•An effective way to improve photostability was obtained.•The anaerobic environment can enhance photodegradation. Poor photostability has become a major obstacle of organic fluorescent dyes (OFD) used as light conversion agent. To explore the intrinsic mechanisms of photodegradation and highly efficient means to enhance photostability, here, three s-triazine dyes and two 1,3,5-triphenylbenzene luminescent agents were designed and synthesized. Further, the relationships of photostability, intramolecular charge transfer effect, energy gap between singlet and triplet, and active oxygen generating capacity are analyzed and discussed. AIE activity, solid-state fluorescence emission, light conversion quality, and photostability combined with thermostability show TPT-DB (2,4,6-tris(4-(3,6-ditertbutyl-9H-carbazol-9-yl)phenyl)-1,3,5-triazine) is the best light conversion agent among of the dyes, whose photosynthetic photon flux density at 400–500 nm and 600–700 nm in doping film increased successively to 6.20% and 25.78% of the blank film, emission intensity can maintain 93.4% of the initial value after intensified UV radiation of 20 h (365 nm, 40 w), and has good thermal stability, Td up to 374 °C. Furthermore, oxygen-free environment was confirmed to be the most effective measure to enhance the photostability of OFD, thereby a simple and efficient method is adopted to block the diffusion of oxygen and significantly enhance the photostability of OFD by amphiphilic ethylene–vinyl alcohol copolymer. The work not only provides an excellent light conversion agent, but also clears the obstacles for the large-scale application of OFD as light conversion agents.