Pure and Applied Chemistry

Abstract: As an alternative to conventional charge-separation functional molecular models based on multi-step long-range electron transfer (ET) within redox cascades, simple donor-acceptor dyads have been developed to attain a long-lived and high-energy charge-separated (CS) state without significant loss of excitation energy. In particular, a simple molecular electron donor-acceptor dyad, 9-mesityl-10-methylacridinium ion (Acr⁺-Mes), is capable of fast charge separation but extremely slow charge recombination. Such a simple molecular dyad has significant advantages with regard to synthetic feasibility, providing a variety of applications for photoinduced ET catalytic systems, including efficient photocatalytic systems for the solar energy conversion and construction of organic solar cells.