One of the inhibiting factors of wide spread use of traditional solar cells is the cost of crystalline silicon production on a large scale. TiO2 based dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have the potential of dramatically increasing the economic viability of solar cells due to the relatively inexpensive production of TiO2. This work focuses on the coordination chemistry used to bind organic functionalities to the TiO2 semiconductor surface. There are numerous commercially available 2 coordinate oxo-ligands but few 3 or 4 coordinate oxo-ligands. Herein we report the syntheses of di(2-hydroxybenzyl) ether and 1,3-(2-hydroxybenzyloxy) propane. In an octahedral titanium centered complex the tridentate [O,O,O] ligand in combination with a chelating ligand will ensure a single site remains open. While the tetradentate [O,O,O,O] ligand forces the remaining open sites to have a cis stereochemistry. These octahedral titanium complexes are useful in modeling semiconductor interface TiO2 based solar cells.

Syntheses of tridentate and tetradentate oxo-ligands used in octahedral titanium (IV) complexes

245th National Meeting (2013)

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