Synthesis And Study On The Photovoltaic Properties Of Polymeric Metal Complexes Containing Phenothiazine

After the new century comes and as the economy develops constantly, the worlddemands more and more energy resources. But rapid energy consumption leads toinsufficient energy resources supply, which has severely hampered the development ofglobal economy. As a renewable energy that is huge in storage and clean and pollution-free,solar energy provides us a possible solution to energy crisis. Therefore, researches of solarcells and their application are of great significance to guarantee our country’s sustainabledevelopment of energy resources, to promote its sustained development of economy andmoreover to build a moderately prosperous society.As a new solar cell, dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSCs) differs from traditional siliconsolar cell because of its simple manufacturing process, low cost, the intensity of light takingfew effects on the voltage size, high return on investment, abundant raw materials, low poisonand low environmental cost. Currently, its major raw materials are ruthenium, rhodium andother precious metals complex dyes, which cost much and severely pollute environment.Polymeric metal complexes not only overcome these disadvantages, but also areeasy-molding and flexible and their molecular orbital can be regulated because they containinorganic metal ion, making it possible to become a commercialized sensitizer material.In the process of design polymeric metal complexes dyes, a new D-π-A structure of dyehave been proposed. A dye with this structure have several merits: the photoelectronsproduced by excited state dye can be effectively transfered, easy to broaden the absorptionspectrum, good stability and molecular structure can be regulated conveniently. Derivatives ofphenothiazine and carbazole was used as donor for their unique photophysical andphotochemical properties. We used metal complexes as acceptor because they have excellentthermal stability and can improve the electron transport properties of the material. In thispaper, two serials of polymeric metal complexes were successfully designed and synthesizedand their characteristics were studied through FT-IR, GPC, Elemental analysis, TGA, UV–visabsorption spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry. Whenapplied in the DSSCs, the highest energy conversion efficiency of serials I’ and II’ polymericmetal complexes was1.57%and2.06%, respectively. Although the energy conversionefficiency isn’t very high, all obtained results will facilitate the understanding of theimportance of molecular engineering and pave a new path to design novel conjugated organicpolymer dye for highly efficient and stable DSSCs. With the efforts of all researchers, webelieve that the polymeric metal complexes are likely to become a new solar cell material.