PFI-TT: Synthesis of low-cost and environmentally sustainable organic phosphors for light emitting diode lighting fixtures

该创新合作伙伴关系 - 技术转化 (PFI-TT) 项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是消除发光二极管 (LED) 照明应用中使用的荧光粉对稀土 (REE) 的依赖，同时继续提高照明质量和效率。稀土元素对于商业 LED 产品中使用的无机荧光粉至关重要。尽管 REE 目前可用；它们的地理分布不均匀，因此其可用性容易受到社会和政治约束、环境法规和经济等多种因素的影响，因此其未来的可用性存在高度的不确定性。因此，无机磷光体对 LED 照明的长期商业可行性和实用性存在固有风险。此外，还有机会提高现有无机磷光体的效率和光质量性能。改进可以减少电力消耗，考虑到 LED 的广泛应用，这可以显着减少温室气体排放。除了直接影响视觉表现外，光质量还影响人类的情绪和行为。改善光质量可能会提高精神状态、提高警觉性并提高工作效率。该项目开发了一种环保方法，以具有商业竞争力的成本，使用丰富的天然产物代替稀土元素来合成有机磷光体。最终产品是嵌入荧光粉的片材，可以作为外壳集成到照明产品中，与稀土元素衍生的无机荧光粉相比，可实现更高的效率和颜色质量。该团队首次报道了通过直接芳基化从可可碱（一种源自可可豆的分子）合成高荧光有机磷光体。使用丰富、无毒的天然产物和先进的绿色化学，研究小组能够以降低成本和环境影响的方式生产所需的有机磷光体。此外，将可可碱引入有机磷光体中可以增强其环境稳定性，这对于 LED 的长寿命至关重要。合成和分子设计挑战了有机磷光体昂贵且不稳定的普遍观念。 Luscombe 博士和她的学生最近开发了可可碱衍生的荧光粉，其效率和光质量性能超过了大多数商业产品。他们下一步的重点是通过分子优化和封装设计进一步增强可可碱衍生荧光粉的稳定性，旨在缩小或消除实验室研究与商业产品之间的差距。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to eliminate dependence on rare-earth (REEs) in phosphors used in light emitting diode (LED) lighting applications while continuing to improve lighting quality and efficiency. Rare earth elements are essential for inorganic phosphors used in commercial LED products. Even though the REEs are currently available; They are geographically unevenly distributed, so their availability is susceptible to various factors, such as social and political constraints, environmental regulations and economics, and thus, a high degree of uncertainty exists in their future availability. As a result, inorganic phosphors present an inherent risk to the long-term commercial viability and utility of LED lighting. Moreover, there exists an opportunity to improve the efficiency and light quality performance of existing inorganic phosphors. Improvements could result in reduced electricity consumption, which could lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions considering the wide application of LEDs. In addition to direct impacts on visual performance, light quality affects human mood and behavior. Improved light quality may lead to elevated mental states, sharpened alertness, and boosted productivity. The proposed project develops an eco-friendly method to synthesize organic phosphors using an abundant natural product in place of rare earth elements, at a commercially competitive cost. The final product, a phosphor-imbed sheet, can be integrated into lighting products as the outer cover and achieve enhanced efficiency and color quality compared to rare earth element-derived inorganic phosphors. The team is the first to report the syntheses of highly fluorescent organic phosphors from theobromine, a molecule derived from cacao beans, through direct arylation. Using an abundant, non-toxic natural product and advanced green chemistry allows the research group to produce the desired organic phosphors at both reduced cost and environmental impacts. Moreover, introducing theobromine to organic phosphors enhances their ambient stability, which is essential for LEDs given their long lifetime. The synthetic and molecular design challenges the common conception that organic phosphors are expensive and unstable. Dr. Luscombe and her students recently developed theobromine-derived phosphors offering efficiency and light quality performance that exceeds most commercial products. Their next steps will focus on further enhancing the stability of the theobromine-derived phosphors through molecular optimization and encapsulation designs, aiming to narrow or eliminate the gap between lab research and a commercial product.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.