Intense and Tunable Electrochemiluminescence of Corannulene

Electrochemiluminescence of corannulene in acetonitrile by the use of coreactants is reported here for the first time. The investigation has been carried out utilizing both benzoyl peroxide as a sacrificial coreactant and arylamine derivatives as nonsacrificial species to perform mixed-annihilation processes. The electrochemiluminescence produces an intense blue light. The use of different tris(arylamines) as mixed-annihilation coreactants gives rise to exciplexes with corannulene that emit at different wavelengths, thus allowing the emission color to be tuned by changing the coreactant molecule. This opens a potential pathway to exploitation of such an intriguing carbon structure for building efficient blue-light emitting devices.