Recent developments of perylene diimide (PDI) supramolecular photocatalysts: A review

Abstract Perylene diimide (PDI) organic materials and their derivatives are currently one of the best n–type organic semiconductors. In recent years, PDI supramolecular photocatalysts have been reported to be able to independently complete the entire photocatalytic process from light absorption, carrier separation to catalytic reaction, which attracts many researchers’ attention. However, its practical applications are still faced with huge challenges such as slow transfer of photogenerated electrons and holes, fast recombination of the above photogenerated carriers, low catalytic activity and poor stability. In order to address these problems, many scholars have carried out a lot of studies. Herein, we will present an up-to-date review on using PDI supramolecular photocatalysts as the main catalyst and corresponding investigations on improving its photocatalytic performance via monomer molecular design of PDI, building π-π composite system, semiconductor heterojunction, precious metal deposition, carbon material coupling, designing PDI polymer and synergy with other methods, etc., and summarize the current existing questions, and make a prospect for the future research.