Perylene-Attached Glass Beads as Metal-Free Photocatalysts for Synthesizing Complex Organic Compounds

With the rising cost of pharmaceutical drug synthesis, new ways of creating base molecules like sulfoxide are in high demand. The state-of-the-art methods for these oxidation reactions involve toxic heavy metals like chromium and vanadium as catalysts, which have long reaction times and require many purification steps. However, perylene-based compounds like perylenetetracarboxylicdianhydride (PTCDA) and perylene diimide (PDI) have shown very promising results when replacing these metals. These organic compounds are non-toxic and have the potential to be reusable when attached to different substrates, for instance, glass beads. When varying the catalytic load of the photocatalyst on the surface, the catalytic performance would, theoretically, be affected. Also, with varying concentrations, the color shade should also becomedarker with more concentrated solutions. Due to the correlation between color shade and concentration, we seek to relate the color shade to its photocatalytic performance, which has yet to be reported in the literture. Glass beads were etched utilizing a base bath followed by an acid bath. Then, the beads were refluxed in a toluene–PDI mixture for 48 hours to covalently attach the PDI photocatalyst. After washing, the beads were shown to retain a light pink color, proving that the attachment was successful. In the future, the beads will be characterized using colorimetry shade analysis and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy . The photocatalytic performance of the photocatalyst-attached beads will be assessed by monitoring the rate of sulfide oxidation using Thin Layer Chromatography and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.