Project R-7531

Travel Credit for a long stay abroad at the Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta USA (Research)

PBTff4T-2OD, better known as PCE11 (based on its capability of reaching 11% in organic solar cells), is an interesting donor polymer to be combined with non-fullerene acceptors in organic photovoltaics. With the current batch synthesis procedures, it is, however, difficult to control the final molecular weight of the polymer, causing (among others) the market price to exceed euro 2000 per gram. During the first two years of my PhD at Hasselt University, an efficient synthesis method for low bandgap conjugated polymers was developed based on the concept of continuous flow chemistry. On the other side, the hosting institute, GeorgiaTech (Seth Marder group), has optimized the monomer synthesis for PCE11 by making use of a highly efficient direct arylation synthesis protocol. During the stay, both protocols were combined and high quality PCE11 was successfully synthesized at a significantly lower cost. The continuous flow protocol allows synthesis of PCE11 with different molecular weights. This variety in polymer chain lengths allows us to speed up or slow down the aggregation process in order to match PCE11 with different non-fullerene acceptors.

01 August 2016 - 31 October 2016