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COOH-TPA showed an obvious change of emission colour, with
CIE coordinates from (0.17, 0.35) to (0.26, 0.49), together with
the quantum yield decreasing from 14.53% to 7.53%, which is
different from ester-TPA, exhibiting only an 8 nm red-shi aer
grinding, but with the quantum yield increasing from 36.69% to
45.90%. The emission could be recovered to the original state by
dropping DCM into the ground sample. In different ratio
mixtures of DCM and ethanol, we obtained crystal of COOH-
TPA with different colour emission (B-crystal and G-crystal).
Furthermore, COOH-TPA could respond to ammonia vapour
with an emission blue-shi and broadening, with CIE coordi-
nates changing from (0.17, 0.35) to (0.23, 0.32) owing to the
deprotonation effect. By solid-state uorescence, lifetime, XRD,
and single-crystal structure analyses, we found that the mech-
anism of the MCF for COOH-TPA was the transformation from
the crystal state to a disordered amorphous state. The increased
quantum yield of ester-TPA aer grinding may be attributed to
the relative planarity conjugate conguration, which is bene-
cial for emission, with a reduction of the non-radiation transi-
tion rate. However, the decrease in the quantum yield of COOH-
TPA may be ascribed to the destroyed intermolecular H-
bonding, leading to strong p–p interactions, along with the
reduction of the radiation transition rate and increase of the
non-radiation transition. In summary, the experiment results
proved that the moiety on the end branch does play an impor-
tant role in the emission property, and this insight will help for
designing MCFs with better emission performance.
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Acknowledgements
This study was nancially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Project No. 21602127), and
Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province (206626901001),
Technological Innovation Scientic and Technological Innova-
tion Programs of Higher Education Institutions in Shanxi
(206548901022), Scientic Research Startup Funds of Shanxi
University (020354010, 231545003). We thank Scientic Instru-
ment Center of Shanxi University for NMR and MS
measurements.
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