Physico-chemical, Biological properties, and Applications of Quinone, its Derivatives-A review

Abstract

Quinones are found to be a class of cyclic organic compounds containing a six-membered unsaturated ring to which two oxygen atoms are bonded as keto (carnonyl) groups. In nature, quinone plays a very vital role in many electrochemical reactions in energy transduction and storage applications. These processes involve respiration and photosynthesis. For example, fast electron transfer accompanied by proton-coupling between primary and secondary quinones in green plants induces the rapid charge separation of chlorophyll molecules, achieving photosynthesis with close to unity quantum yield. In addition, quinone-rich polymers such as eumelanin and polydopamine exhibit distinct optical and electrical properties attributed to their chemically disordered structures. Understanding the unique features of quinone and its derivatives can provide solutions to the design and development of bio-directed systems in the frontier areas like energy harvesting and conversion. This paper reviews quinone and its derivatives physic-chemical and biological properties like redox, electrical, optical, and metal chelating/reducing, medicinal, microbicidal, anticancer etc. to determine these materials ’applications in energy-harvesting and-storage systems, such as artificial photosynthetic platforms, rechargeable batteries, pseudocapacitors, phototransistors, plasmonic light harvesting platforms, and dye-sensitized solar cells, sensors, drug delivery etc.