SYNTHESIS OF DONOR AND ACCEPTOR BRANCHED MOLECULES FOR APPLICATION IN ORGANIC PHOTOVOLTAICS

SYNTHESIS OF DONOR AND ACCEPTOR BRANCHED MOLECULES FOR APPLICATION IN ORGANIC PHOTOVOLTAICS

CHEMISTRY & GREEN CHEMISTRY

Lab: LCC

Duration: NanoX Master Internship (8 months part-time in-lab immersion)

Latest starting date: 01/10/2025

Localisation: Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination du CNRS
205 route de Narbonne
31077 Toulouse cedex 4 - FRANCE

Supervisors:
Dr Valérie Maraval valerie.maraval@lcc-toulouse.fr
Dr José-Luis Maldonado jlmr@cio.mx

Work package:
The development of branched molecules such as dendrimers for applications in organic solar cells and other optoelectronic devices has been largely considered in the last decades.1,2 The use of polyfunctional architectures is indeed particularly attractive because it allows the introduction of a large number of chromophores, either electron-donors or electron-acceptors, at defined positions on a single macromolecule. Here, it’s proposed to develop a series of small branched molecules built from hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene, a hexafunctional precursor used as core for the synthesis of phosphorus-containing dendrimers.3 The project will first focus on small molecules that are easily accessible, before increasing the number of substituents through the use of larger dendrimers. The proposed cyclotriphosphazene-based molecules will be envisaged as electron-donor or -acceptor in organic solar cells (OSCs), but some of them could also be tested as hole transport layer. The selected donors (fluorene derivatives) and acceptors (benzothiadiazole derivatives) grafted onto the hexafunctional core will bear alkyl groups in order to make soluble the targeted molecules, as required to allow the preparation of thin layers of good qualit¬¬¬¬y for OSCs devices. The objective of the internship will be to perform the synthesis of the molecules, while their introduction in OSCs and the study of their efficiency will be done by the Mexican partner. This project is proposed within the context of an international collaboration between a French chemistry group (Head: Valérie Maraval) and a Mexican group specialized in OSCs (Head: José-Luis Maldonado) who have established since several years a fruitful collaboration that gave rise to six common publications.

References:
References: S.-C. Lo, P. L. Burn, Chem. Rev. 2007, 107, 1097-1116. 2 X. Zhang, Y. Zeng, T. Yu, J. Chen, G. Yang, Y. Li, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2014, 5, 2340-2350. 3 See for example: J. Qiu, A. Hameau, X. Shi, S. Mign,ani, J.-P. Majoral, A.-M. Caminade, ChemPlusChem 2019, 84, 1070-1080. 4 I. Baglai, M. Anda-Villa, R. M. Barba-Barba, C. Poidevin, G. Ramos-Ortíz, V. Maraval, C. Lepetit, N. Saffon Merceron, J.L. Maldonado, R. Chauvin, Chem.-Eur. J. 2015, 21, 14186–14195. 5 C. Zhu, C. Duhayon, D. Romero-Borja, J.L. Maldonado, G. Ramos-Ortíz, A. Saquet, V. Maraval, R. Chauvin, New J. Chem. 2017, 41, 3908–3914. 6 I. Baglai, G. Ramos-Ortiz, J.-L. Maldonado, Z. Voitenko, V. Maraval, R. Chauvin, French-Ukr. J. Chem. 2018, 6(2), 9-1. 7 M. Chammam, I. Caballero-Quintana, D. Barreiro-Argüelles, O. Amargós-Reyes, Y. Aidibi, B. Kauffmann, C. Duhayon, J.L. Maldonado, G. Ramos-Ortíz, V. Maraval, R. Chauvin, Helv. Chim. Acta. 2019, 102, e1900049. 8 D. Listunov, O. Hammerich, I. Caballero-Quintana, A. Poater, C. Barthes, C. Duhayon, M. H. Larsen, J.L. Maldonado, G. Ramos-Ortiz, M. B. Nielsen, V. Maraval, R. Chauvin, Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 10707–10711. 9 I. Caballero-Quintana, J. Rivera-Taco, C. Barthes, J. Nicasio-Collazo, G. Ramos-Ortíz, J.L. Maldonado, V. Maraval, R. Chauvin, Synthetic Met. 2021, 278,116826.

Areas of expertise:
Dendrimers, chromophores, organic solar cells

Required skills for the internship:
Good general knowledge and expertise in organic synthesis.