Reply to the ‘Comment on “Metal–organic green dye: chemical and physical insight into a modified Zn-benzoporphyrin for dye-sensitized solar cells”’ by R. Steer, RSC Advances, 2018, DOI: 10.1039/c8ra00213d†
Abstract
The authors reply to the comment by R. P. Steer discussing the reasons for their incorrect assignment of the luminescence decay of the novel compound 5,10,15-(triphenyl),20-[ethynyl-(4-carboxy)phenyl]tetrabenzoporphyrinate Zn(II) (PETBP). Further DFT and TDDFT calculations have been performed on the compound to investigate the possibility of a direct S2–S0 decay instead of a S2–S1 conversion with a subsequent emission to the ground state. In addition, the presence of traces of very luminescent contaminants of the ring-opened type has been considered on the grounds of calculated absorption and fluorescence spectra. The results of these investigations confirm that the S2–S0 emission reported in the commented paper is not attributable to the target molecule but rather to a neglected luminescent impurity.