Conjugated polymers posses many exceptional electronic, optical and thermal properties and thus are well suited for organic semiconducting applications, such as photovoltaic cells, thin film transistors, and light emitting diodes. However, there are several issues that have to be addressed for commercial development of products based on these materials. Of particular interest is the development of efficient conjugated polymer photovoltaic cells from low-cost materials as this in beneficial for large -scale synthesis. To this end our group has begun making conjugated polymer building blocks from low-cost starting materials such as hydroquinone, and furfural. Specifically, we have developed novel conjugated polymers based on the electron-deficient 3,6-di(furan-2-yl)pyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4(2H,5H)-dione (DFDPP) and electron-rich benzo[1,2-<i>b</i>:4,5-<i>b</i>′]difuran (BDF) moieties (Figure 1). We have selected DFPPD and BDF as building blocks because conjugated polymers comprising it have exhibited excellent performance in bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cells. Additionally, we can prepare monomers based on these heterocycles from readily available starting materials in a few short steps. Novel donor-acceptor copolymers can be synthesized by combining the DFDPP and BDF monomers with various co-monomers. Our recent work on these materials will be presented.

Toward conjugated polymer photovoltaic cells from low-cost starting materials

249th National Meeting (2015)

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