Renewable resource of aggregation-induced emission materials: From photophysical mechanisms to biomedical applications

With the rapid development of social economy, the pollution problems in chemical synthesis is increasing, followed by environmental pollution problems. Thus, it is of great significance to efficiently utilize renewable resources and convert them into green renewable energy. Traditional fluorescent materials exhibit aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ), which greatly limits their applications in aggregated states. Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) materials with opposite properties of the ACQ behavior in the aggregated state. The development of bio-AIE materials with renewable, sustainable, and biocompatible biomass resources as raw materials has gradually aroused the interest of researchers. Renewable resources involve alkaloids, flavonoids, vitamins, terpenes coumarin other phytochemicals (cellulose, sodium alginate). In this review, the research progress of renewable resources based on AIE materials is summarized, exploring the photophysical mechanisms of natural products and the biomedical application in this research field, and look forward to the future development direction.