Benzothiazoles are aromatic heterocyclic compounds with the chemical formula C7H5NS. Benzothiazoles and their derivatives are a very important class of heterocyclic compounds that are ubiquitous in nature and are mainly used in medicine, agriculture and industry. In medicine, benzothiazole derivatives are a kind of very important pharmaceutical intermediates with good pharmacological and biological activities. It can be used as a fungicide, anti-tuberculosis drug, anti-malarial, anti-convulsant, insecticide, sedative and anti-inflammatory drug, and can also be used to treat diabetes and has anti-cancer effects.
The two N atoms in Benzothiadiazole could possibly form intermolecular hydrogen bonding, leading to a more planar backbone. Benzothiadiazole is a strong electron-accepting molecular fragment. By fusing it with thiazole donor-acceptor dyes, near-infrared fluorescence was created. The benzothiadiazole ring is a useful n-type building block for designing electron-transport materials for organic and polymer light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Arene- and heteroarene-fused thiadiazoles have also found use in the design of low-band-gap materials for the construction of organic field-effect transmitters (OFETs), as stable organic radicals, and as one or two photon-absorbing materials for the design of nonlinear near-infrared (NIR) dyes. Benzothiadiazoles acting as the electron-accepting cores have been incorporated into dendrimer-type light-harvesting materials.