Traditional Metals vs. Earth-Abundant Metals: New Advances in Photochemistry
A special issue of Photochem (ISSN 2673-7256).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026 | Viewed by 638
Editors
Interests: organometallic chemistry; photochemistry
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Organometallic complexes play a central role in modern photochemistry due to their unique photophysical properties, including strong visible light absorption, long‐lived excited states, and tunable redox potentials. Traditionally, complexes based on noble metals such as ruthenium, iridium, and platinum have dominated the field because of their efficient intersystem crossing and well‐defined metal‐to‐ligand charge transfer (MLCT) states, enabling applications in photocatalysis, solar energy conversion, and photoredox reactions. However, growing concerns related to cost, scarcity, and sustainability have driven increasing interest in complexes derived from earth‐abundant metals such as iron, copper, nickel, and cobalt. Recent advances in ligand design and electronic structure control have significantly improved the excited‐state lifetimes, photostability, and reactivity of these systems, allowing them to compete with traditional noble metal complexes. These developments expand the applicability of organometallic photochemistry toward more sustainable technologies, including green synthesis, light‐driven catalysis, and energy‐related applications.
Dr. Lorenzo Arnal Vallés
Prof. Dr. Ignacio Fernández
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- earth-abundant metals
- ligand design
- organometallic complexes
- photophysical properties
- noble metal complexes
- optoelectronic devices
- photocalalysis
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