Vol.:(0123456789) Research on Chemical Intermediates https://doi.org/10.1007/s11164-019-03924-y 1 3 Synthesis, solar cell application, and biological study of vinyl substituted isophorone derivatives Zehra Kozak 1  · Selin Pıravadılı Mucur 2  · Betül Canımkurbey 3,6  · Önder İdil 5  · Serpil Eryılmaz 4  · Melek Gul 1,6 Received: 11 February 2019 / Accepted: 25 June 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Abstract In this study, isophorone derivatives, which are single step aldol products, were designed and synthesized. Our overview of the synthesis of solar cell application and biological applications of series vinyl substituted isophorone compounds is reported. All synthesized compounds were characterized both through experimen- tal techniques and calculations with density functional theory. Additionally, we investigated the photophysical properties of small organic compounds for organic bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cells. The solar cell efciency results were com- pared and compound 4 was found to be more efcient than the other compounds. It was found that the optical quantum yield values were very close. Isophorone derivatives showed better antioxidant activities, which were DPPH, metal chelat- ing, reducing activity, and antimicrobial activities against Salmonella typhimurium, Klebsiella pneumonia, Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, and Escherichia coli. Compound 7 (which is substituted quinoline) and compound 5 (which is substituted cyno) had the highest antioxidant efect. The 4-brom phenyl, 4-cyno phenyl were used against gram negative bacteria and the 4-ter-butyl phenyl group was indicated for gram positive bacteria and yeast. Keywords Aldol · Isophorone · Organic photovoltaics Introduction Organic electronics plays important roles in economic and environmental sys- tems. Organic bulk heterojunction photovoltaic (PV) cells have awoken interest as an alternative to crystalline silicon solar cells due to their low cost, fexibility, and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s1116 4-019-03924-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Melek Gul melek.gul@amasya.edu.tr Extended author information available on the last page of the article