• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.639-645
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• 2016

We herein report efficient triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion (TTA-UC) achieved in various non-toxic and non-volatile vegetable oils as a UC media using platinum-octaethylporphyrin (PtOEP) and 9,10-diphenylanthracene (DPA) as a sensitizer and acceptor, respectively. Green-to-blue UC was readily achieved from PtOEP/DPA solution in vegetable oils with the quantum yield of 8% without any deoxygenation process. The UC efficiency was found to be significantly dependent on the contents of unsaturated hydrocarbon in vegetable oils and viscosity of the solution, as well. Though the Stern-volmer constant and quantum yield in vegetable oils were measured to be lower than those measured in the deaerated organic solvent, the quenching efficiency was still high enough to be 93%. In the sunflower oil, the UC threshold intensity ($I_{th}$) was approx. $100mW/cm^2$, which is far larger than the sunlight intensity, but we believe that the UC achieved in non-toxic and air-saturated media was still highly applicable to nontraditional visualization techniques such as bioimaging.