Basic-to-acidic reversible pH switching with a merocyanine photoacid

08 February 2022, Version 1
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

The application of merocyanine photoacids has been previously largely limited to neutral and acidic pH values. Here we introduce a new merocyanine photoacid with superior pH switching qualities. By increasing the pKa in the dark (pKadark) and the solubility we increased the reversible visible light induced pH jump to 3.5 units. Moreover, it is the first demonstration of a merocyanine photoacid able to generate a significant pH drop from a basic (pH 8.3) to an acidic (pH 5.2) environment.

Keywords

photoswitch
photochromic
photoacid
merocyanine
spiropyran
pH
pH switch

Supplementary materials

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Description
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Supporting Information
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All the synthetic, spectroscopic and other supporting data and analysis.
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All NMR, UV-vis absorption, pH data
Description
All the NMR, UV-vis and pH data, and processed data in origin and excel files.
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