Improvement of organic light-emitting diodes using natural carotenoids extracted from plants

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K06322
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Electron device/Electronic equipment
• Research Institution: Doshisha University
• Principal Investigator: Ohtani Naoki 同志社大学, 理工学部, 教授 (80359067)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 植物色素 / 発光ダイオード / 色素増感太陽電池 / 抗酸化作用 / カロテノイド / アントシアニン

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We made red LED using chlorophyll isolated and purified from spinach, and realized improvement of device operation lifetime by antioxidant effect of isolated and purified β-carotene, and clarified its mechanism. We also examined the blue shift of the emission wavelength and the increase in emission intensity due to the β-carotene doping. In addition, we found that the blue fluorescent dye can be extracted from the branches of Audamo. Moreover, the green fluorescent dye has been successfully extracted from mini tomatoes by column chromatography method. These results show that luminescence of the three primary colors of light can be realized with plant pigments.
Dye-sensitized solar cells using plant pigments were fabricated, and it was found that good photoelectric conversion efficiency can be realized when using anthocyanins contained in berry fruits.

Free Research Field

半導体光デバイス

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

植物から抽出した天然βカロテンおよびアントシアニン系色素などの抗酸化作用による蛍光高分子の発光特性の変調については他の研究機関ではまったく行われておらず、その学術的独自性と創造性は極めて高い。また本研究は、天然色素の抗酸化作用のメカニズムと工業製品の効率化を結びつける学際的な位置付けにあり、新たな学問分野を喚起する可能性あがる。さらに、産業応用への波及効果も大きく、豊富な天然資源を利用できれば安価で低環境負荷の工業製品を量産できるので、資源に乏しい我が国にとってそのメリットはとても大きい。