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.