Supramolecular assemblies working as both artificial light-harvesting system and nanoreactor for efficient organic dehalogenation in aqueous environment.

In this work, three artificial light-harvesting systems are constructed by a supramolecular approach in aqueous environment. The water-soluble bipyridinium derivatives (DPY1, DPY2, and DPY3) were self-assembled with cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) to form the host-guest DPY-CB[7] complexes, which can highly disperse in water as small nanoparticles. The excited DPY-CB[7] assemblies can transfer energy to the sulfo-rhodamine 101 (SR101) molecules at a high donor/acceptor ratio. With the help of hydrophobic cavity of CB[7], the DPY-CB[7] + SR101 systems can works as a nanoreactor for effective dehalogenation of α-bromoacetophenone and its derivatives in aqueous medium under white light irradiation. Such light-harvesting systems has greatly potential applications to realize some organic photocatalytic synthesis in aqueous environment.