Mild and efficient extraction of fluorescent chlorophyll a from spinach leaves for application as the sustainable emitter in light-emitting electrochemical cells

Natural pigments are sustainable compounds that can be employed as emitters, sensors and sensitisers in optoelectronics. The most abundant pigment, chlorophyll, offers advantages of easily available and plentiful feedstock, biodegradability and non-toxicity. However, strenuous extraction and separation limit its application on larger scale. In this work, a practically mild and scalable extraction and separation method for rapid isolation of chlorophyll a from spinach is presented. Three different stationary phases for column chromatography were evaluated, and a new solvent system was developed for the elution of chlorophyll a on a neutral alumina chromatography column. The purified product was obtained with a yield of 0.98 mg ⋅ g−1 with respect to the dry leaves. A first light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEC) based on chlorophyll a as the emitter is reported, using the extracted chlorophyll a as the guest compound dispersed in a blend-host matrix in a concentration of 2.5 or 5 mass %. The higher-chlorophyll-concentration LEC exhibits emission solely from the chlorophyll emitter, with the main emission peak located at 675 nm. The lower-chlorophyll-concentration LEC features two distinct emission bands, one in the red region that is originating from the chlorophyll guest and one in the blue region (main peak at 430 nm) that stems from the blend host. This combined red:blue emission can be attractive for, e. g., greenhouse applications, since it matches the action spectrum of plant photosynthesis.