A new and simple polymer synthesis for polymer solar cells

A team of Swedish chemists have presented a novel and straightforward method for synthesising polymers for use in polymer solar cells (PSC) with a wide absorption spectrum.

The researchers, led by Mats R. Andersson from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, synthesised the polymer from a widely available stannyl thiophene and an easily synthesised bromoisoindigo monomer. These were then coupled together using a Stille coupling reaction. Overall this represents just 3 steps and was achieved with a high overall yield of 68%.

 

The polymer itself is a low band-gap polymer with a donor–acceptor structure, which is important for harvesting photons from sunlight. The team found that the polymer exhibited promising performance when used in a PSC device and expect to be able to further improve this by varying the indigo groups.

If you would like to read more about this topic then download the ChemComm article for free today. Also, why not check out these other great ChemComm articles on PCSs?

Synthesis of annulated thiophene perylene bisimide analogues: their applications to bulk heterojunction organic solar cells
Hyunbong Choi, Sanghyun Paek, Juman Song, Chulwoo Kim, Nara Cho and Jaejung Ko
Chem. Commun., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0CC05448H

Crystalline conjugated polymer containing fused 2,5-di(thiophen-2-yl)thieno[2,3-b]thiophene and thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione units for bulk heterojunction solar cells
Guan-Yu Chen, Yu-Hsin Cheng, Yi-Jen Chou, Ming-Shin Su, Chia-Min Chen and Kung-Hwa Wei
Chem. Commun., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CC10585J

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)