Lanthanide tetrasulfophthalocyanines incorporated to SiO2 gels

The sandwich-type lanthanide phthalocyanines, HLn(Pc)₂, are macrocyclic molecules with important optical properties. New routes are proposed to successfully trap soluble substituted phthalocyanines in SiO₂ materials prepared by the sol-gel method. Specifically, the phthalocyanines studied in this work are lanthanide 2, 9, 16, 23–bistetrasulfophthalocyanines, HLn(TSPc)₂, where Ln = Sm, Eu, Dy and Ho, and they were trapped in silica networks. The design routes to trap and bind the macrocycles into the inorganic matrix pore systems are described here. These considerations show that interesting materials with potential applications in electronic, optics and catalysis can be obtained.