Conjugated Porous Polymers: Ground‐Breaking Materials for Solar Energy Conversion

Abstract

poor applicability for movable applications. Therefore, the development of new technologies to store renewable energy is really important to achieve the transition to a greener energy system. [3] Although new battery technologies will likely meet the need for cost-effective energy storage (1-3 days) for short time scales, fuels are the only effective option for longerterm, seasonal storage, and long-distance transportation applications. [4] Collecting and loading solar energy into electric power and more interestingly directly into valuable chemicals and fuels, as nature does through photosynthesis, is a highly desirable approach to solve this challenge. Since Honda and Fujishima [5] discovered the possibility to emulate this natural phenomenon using TiO 2 as photocatalyst more than 40 years ago, the scientific community has been trying to overcome the challenges hindering the commercialization of water splitting and CO 2 reduction. [6,7] During the past years, a large variety of systems have been proposed to drive the so-called artificial photosynthesis (AP), most of them based on inorganic semiconductors (ISs), usually metal oxides and metal chalcogenides. IS are able to absorb part of the solar spectrum and promote charge separation into electron and holes. In fact, there is a lot of recent work in the literature reviewing the use of ISs as photoabsorbers in photocatalytic, photoelectrochemical (PEC), and photovoltaic (PV) systems. [8,9] The achievements and improvements performed in this area have been always enormous. In this sense, among the huge number of materials explored, TiO 2 has been by far the most investigated until now due to its unique properties: high photoactivity and chemical stability, availability, and nontoxicity. [10,11] However, some ISs, and TiO 2 in particular, present well-known shortcomings in terms of low light absorption in the visible part of solar spectrum and fast charge recombination that limits electron donor-acceptor process. Therefore, the energy conversion efficiency achieved until now is still low. The improvement of this efficiency relies on the use of new materials that are able to harvest solar light and active toward CO 2 /N 2 reduction and water splitting. The most successful strategies to improve the photocatalyst performance so far have been: i) the modification of the optoelectronic properties of TiO 2 or other ISs, [12] ii) the use of organic materials as semiconductors, Solar energy conversion plays a very important role in the transition to a more sustainable energy system. In this sense, so many systems have been proposed to drive artificial photosynthesis, most of them based on inorganic semiconductors, and the achievements performed continue every day. However, most of these systems present well-known shortcomings as low light absorption, fast charge recombination, and lack of tunability, thus limiting their efficiency. The use of organic polymers in general and conjugated porous polymers (CPPs) in particular, opens the door to a multitude of new possibilities...

An Efficient Electron Donor for Conjugated Microporous Polymer Photocatalysts with High Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Activity

“…[ 9–11 ] In particular, significant advances in the preparation of conjugated microporous polymer (CMP) photocatalysts with high photocatalytic activity have been achieved. [ 12–14 ]…”

“…[9][10][11] In particular, significant advances in the preparation of conjugated microporous polymer (CMP) photocatalysts with high photocatalytic activity have been achieved. [12][13][14] Many studies revealed that designing a donor-acceptor (D-A) molecular structure is an efficient strategy to boost the photocatalytic activity of conjugated polymer photocatalysts, [15][16][17][18] since the intrinsic electron push-pull effect in a D-A conjugated polymer could promote the separation of light-induced hole/ electron. The nature of electron donor and acceptor units plays a key point in the charges transfer and separation, which affect significantly the photocatalytic activity.…”

Ladder-like Polymer Brushes Containing Conjugated Poly(Propylenedioxythiophene) Chains

“…They have attracted especially high interest in recent years due to the significant developments in the synthetic approaches and desired applications [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Taking into account the favorable processability of conductive polymers, possibility of tailoring their structures and functions at the molecular scale, low production costs, and reasonable stability, π-conjugated polymers may find applications in next-generation electronic devices [ 5 ], such as photovoltaic organic solar cells [ 6 ], bioelectronics [ 7 ], energy storage devices [ 8 ], energy conversion systems [ 9 ], and electrochemical transistors [ 10 ].…”

Mechanochemistry‐Driven Construction of Aza‐fused π‐Conjugated Networks Toward Enhanced Energy Storage

“…To test the feasibility of constructing CMP skeletons composed of only aza-fused rings by deploying starting materials without the constraint of steric hindrance, homocoupling of easily available monomers (e.g., aromatic halides) with pyridine (Py), bipyridine (Bipy), and phenanthroline (Phen) cores are preferred, considering the wide application and attractive performance of nanoporous materials containing these functionalities in the field of separation, catalysis, and energy storage. [5,12,15,[20][21][22][23][24] However, their linear structures make it difficult to generate polymer networks with permanent porosity. We envisaged that we could leverage the coordination ability of these organic ligands with metal species to realize in situ formation of units with high steric hindrance and multiple reactive sites, which, after the polymerization process, can be disintegrated without disturbing the as-formed polymer architecture.…”