Preparation of Tunable Multicolor Persistent Room Temperature Phosphorescence Materials by Doping Cellulose Nanocrystals with Aromatic Carboxylic Acids

Persistently adjustable room temperature organic (p-RTP) luminescent materials have broad application prospects in multiple anti-counterfeiting encryption and other fields. It is generally difficult for single component substances to achieve adjustable full color gamut room temperature afterglow, and dual component doping may be a feasible solution. Here, cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) were doped with aromatic acid molecules of different conjugation levels that can generate various interactions, and a full-color gamut long afterglow emitting luminescent material with blue to red light was successfully prepared under the same excitation. Not only does it achieve adjustable afterglow color, but it also has long afterglow emission (447.02 ms). The crystallinity of CNC and its strong hydrogen bonding with doped molecules endow aromatic acid molecules with a liquid nitrogen like environment, resulting in a multi-color afterglow under strong conformational hardening. This simple and low-cost method for preparing powder materials with all color gamut adjustable p-RTP emission has proven to have great commercial prospects in the field of multiple anti-counterfeiting encryption.