Superhydrophobic conjugated microporous polymers show good selectivity, fast adsorption kinetics, excellent recyclability and absorbencies for a wide range of organic solvents and oils, which make them the promising candidates for potential applications, including liquid-liquid separation, water treatment and so on.Superhydrophobic surfaces (water contact angle (CA) larger than 150 ) have generated extensive commercial and academic interest. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] In recent years, there has been an increased interest in generation and utilization of the surface superhydrophobicity of a solid for direct separation or selective adsorption of oil or hydrophobic organic solvents from water. The first example for oil-water separation by using superhydrophobic and superoleophilic coating mesh has been reported by Jiang et al. 8 Along this line, more recently, the creation of nanometre-or micrometre-sized porous materials with excellent surface superhydrophobicity has been reported and successfully used for separation and adsorption of oils or organic solvents from water. For example, Yuan et al. reported the selective adsorption of oil from water by a superwetting nanowire membrane. 9 Similar selective adsorption performance has also been reported by Zhang et al. using superhydrophobic nanoporous polydivinylbenzene. 10 Due to their excellent selective adsorption performance, fast adsorption kinetics, good working capacity and recyclable use performance, these materials have great advantages over those traditional absorbent materials such as active carbons, 11,12 which suffer from a number of drawbacks, including slow adsorption kinetics, poor selectivity and limited working capacity. Owing to the global scale of severe water pollution arising from oil spills and industrial organic pollutants, the creation of efficient absorbent materials for separation and removal of oils or organic pollutants from water should be of great importance to address environmental issues. Broader contextOwing to the global scale of severe water pollution arising from oil spills and industrial organic pollutants, the creation of efficient absorbent materials for separation and removal of oils or organic pollutants from water should be of great importance to address environmental issues. Here we report for the first time the surface superhydrophobicity of the conjugated microporous polymers (CMP) as well as their excellent adsorption performance for oils and organic solvents. Due to their open pore structures and excellent surface superhydrophobicity, oils or non-polar organic solvents can be easily absorbed and separated from water by the CMP without adsorption of water. The CMP also show excellent adsorption performance for those polar organic solvents and toxic organic solvents with the absorbencies ranging approximately from 700 wt% to 1500 wt% for the HCMP-1 and 600 wt% to 2300 wt% for the HCMP-2, respectively. By loading the CMP, the hydrophilic sponge can be changed to be oleophilic to oil. With a loading of 7.0 mg cm À3 of the HCMP-1 ...
A series of metal‐free acene‐modified triphenylamine dyes (benzene to pentacene, denoted as TPA‐AC1 to TPA‐AC5) are investigated as organic sensitizers for application in dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). A combination of density functional theory (DFT), density functional tight‐binding (DFTB), and time‐dependent DFT (TDDFT) approaches is employed. The effects of acene units on the spectra and electrochemical properties of the acene‐modified TPA organic dyes are demonstrated. The dye/(TiO2)46 anatase nanoparticle systems are also simulated to show the electronic structures at the interface. The results show that from TPA‐AC1 to TPA‐AC5 with increasing sizes of the acenes, the absorption and fluorescence spectra are systematically broadened and red‐shifted, but the oscillator strength and electron injection properties are reduced. The molecular orbital contributions show increasing localization on the bridging acene units from TPA‐AC1 to TPA‐AC5. From the theoretical examination of some key parameters including free enthalpy related to the electron injection, light‐harvesting efficiency, and the shift of semiconductor conduction band, TPA‐AC3 with an anthracene moiety demonstrates a balance of the above crucial factors. TPA‐AC3 is expected to be a promising dye with desirable energetic and spectroscopic parameters in the DSSC field, which is consistent with recent experimental work. This study is expected to deepen our understanding of TPA‐based organic dyes and assist the molecular design of new metal‐free dyes for the further optimization of DSSCs.
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