With the ever-expanding field of solar energy technology, there is a high demand for better functional materials. One such material is a donor-acceptor copolymer because it allows the band gap to be tuned within the visible and near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In this investigation, we utilized 4,8-bis(ethylhexyloxy)benzodithiophene (BDT) as the donor and indophenine as a quinoidal acceptor. A quinoidal molecule was chosen because these molecules have traits such as planarity, high conductivity, and reduced band gaps.. Indophenine also contains two thiophene rings which can be oxidized using m-chloroperbenzoic acid (mCPBA) to form a bis-sulfone indophenine (BSI) - an excellent acceptor monomer. In this research, BSI is formed at room temperature in a convenient one-pot synthesis. Polymerization of BSI and 2,6-bis(trimethylstannyl)- 4,8-bis(ethylhexyloxy)benzodithiophene proceeded via Stille coupling. UV-vis spectroscopy of the resulting copolymer indicates good absorption across the Vis-NIR with an optical band gap of 1.35 eV. Cyclic voltammetry shows the copolymer has an electrochemical band gap of 1.20 eV.<br/>

Indophenine as a donor-acceptor copolymer

255th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.