Assembly and Adsorption Properties of Seven Supramolecular Compounds with Heteromacrocycle Imidazolium

Seven supramolecular compounds comprising multivalent imidazolium macrocycles and metal halides, {[MC-IM][Ag₂I₄]} _n (1), {[PC-IM]₂[Ag₇I₁₁]} _n (2), {[ODC-IM][Ag₃I₇]} (3), {[ODC-IM][Bi₂I₁₀]} (4), {[MDC-IM][Bi₂I₁₀]} (5), {[PDC-IM][Bi₂I₁₀]} (6), and {[MDC-IM][HgI₄]} (7), have been synthesized by solvothermal reactions and structurally characterized by IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Notably, the three tetravalent imidazolium macrocycles were introduced for the first time and the extended anion structures are featured with three-dimensional coordination networks, one-dimensional chains, or zero-dimensional oligomers. This new study attempts to not only fill the gap in this supramolecular hybrid area that has been neglected but also enrich the type of imidazolium cyclophane. It is important that good efforts were devoted to study the adsorption properties of supramolecular compounds. Compound 5 exhibited great adsorption performance for organic dyes methylene blue, methyl orange, and rhodamine B (RhB) and can be evaluated as a potential candidate for industrial wastewater treatment.

Conjugated Donor-Acceptor Terpolymers Toward High-Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells

The development of conjugated alternating donor-acceptor (D-A) copolymers with various electron-rich and electron-deficient units in polymer backbones has boosted the power conversion efficiency (PCE) over 17% for polymer solar cells (PSCs) over the past two decades. However, further enhancements in PCEs for PSCs are still imperative to compensate their imperfect stability for fulfilling practical applications. Meanwhile development of these alternating D-A copolymers is highly demanding in creative design and syntheses of novel D and/or A monomers. In this regard, when being possible to adopt an existing monomer unit as a third component from its libraries, either a D' unit or an A' moiety, to the parent D-A type polymer backbones to afford conjugated D-A terpolymers, it will give a facile and cost-effective method to improve their light absorption and tune energy levels and also interchain packing synergistically. Moreover, the rationally controlled stoichiometry for these components in such terpolymers also provides access for further fine-tuning these factors, thus resulting in high-performance PSCs. Herein, based on their unique features, the recent progress of conjugated D-A terpolymers for efficient PSCs is reviewed and it is discussed how these factors influence their photovoltaic performance, for providing useful guidelines to design new terpolymers toward high-efficiency PSCs.

New Blue Donor-Acceptor Pechmann Dyes: Synthesis, Spectroscopic, Electrochemical, and Computational Studies

The design, synthesis, and characterization of a new class of blue-colored thiophene-substituted Pechmann dyes are reported. Due to a distinguishing blue coloration and the capability to absorb light in one of the most photon-dense regions of the solar spectrum, such compounds are of great interest for application as photoactive materials in organic optoelectronics, in particular, in dye-sensitized solar cells. To achieve fine tuning of the optical and electrochemical properties, the electron-poor thiophene-bis-lactone moiety has been decorated with donor (D) and acceptor groups (A), targeting fully conjugated D-A-π-A structures. The designed structures have been investigated by means of DFT and time-dependent DFT calculations, and the most promising dyes have been synthesized. These molecules represent the very first preparation of unsymmetrical Pechmann derivatives. Optical and electrochemical properties of the new dyes have been studied by cyclic voltammetry and UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopy. In two cases, test cells were built proving that a photocurrent can indeed be generated when using electrolytes especially formulated for narrow-band-gap dyes, although with a very low efficiency.

Synthesis and organic field effect transistor properties of isoindigo/DPP-based polymers containing a thermolabile group

The effect of hydrogen bonding and π–π intermolecular stacking on the physical properties and device performance.

Conjugated terpolymers synthesized by incorporating anthracene units into the backbones of the diketopyrrolopyrrole-based polymers as electron donors for photovoltaic cells

Three new conjugated D–A terpolymers PADPP1, PADPP2 and PADPP3, which contain diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) as electron acceptors and thiophene/anthracene as electron donors for photovoltaic cells, are described.