Ion-Driven Self-Assembly of Lanthanide Bis-phthalocyaninates into Conductive Quasi-MOF Nanowires: an Approach toward Easily Recyclable Organic Electronics.

Controlled self-assembly and rapid disintegration of supramolecular nanowires is potentially useful for ecology-friendly organic electronics. Herein, a novel method exploiting the binding between crown-substituted double-decker lanthanide phthalocyaninates (ML, M = Lu, Ce, Tb) and K ions is applied for the one-step fabrication of macroscopically long conductive one-dimensional quasi-metal-organic frameworks. Their properties are controlled by the size of the lanthanide ion guiding the assembly through either intra- or intermolecular interactions. A LuL linker with a small interdeck distance yields fully conjugated intermolecular-bonded K-LuL nanowires with a thickness of 10-50 nm, a length of up to 50 μm, and a conductivity of up to 11.4 S cm, the highest among them being reported for phthalocyanine assemblies. The large size of CeL and TbL leads to the formation of mixed intra- and intermolecular K-ML phases with poor electric properties. A field-assisted method is developed to deposit aligned conductive K-LuL assemblies on solids. The solid-supported nanowires can be disintegrated into starting components in a good aprotic solvent for further recycling.