Nickel Phthalocyanines as Potential Aggregation‐Induced Antibacterial Agents: Fenton‐Like Pathways Driven by Near‐Infrared Light.

The present report uncovers the Fenton‐like and solar‐Fenton activity of nickel‐coordinated phthalocyanines and their potential as antibacterial agents. In particular, two NiPcs, one achiral and the other chiral, with both having similar molecular structures, are designed. Both compounds aggregate to form crystals with large diversity in molecular stacking. The crystal grown from the achiral NiPc demonstrates superior Fenton‐like activity especially under NIR‐light illumination, and also exhibits efficient antibacterial activity in vitro toward both E. coli and S. aureus. On the contrary, the crystal formed from stacked chiral molecules demonstrates weak Fenton‐like reactivity and is inefficient for bacterial disinfection. By examining the differences between the two crystals, we have disclosed the mechanism of the Fenton‐like reactivity of the NiPcs associated with molecular aggregation. Moreover, the chiral NiPc and its crystal provide a good platform to inspect the correlation between the functions, for instance the antibacterial activity between the chiral selections. This work indicates that controlling small differences in molecular structure can provide an effective way to achieve specific functions, such as Fenton‐like activity, of organic semiconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]