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    Thiophene-Bridged Donor–Acceptor sp2-Carbon-Linked 2D Conjugated Polymers as Photocathodes for Water Reduction
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2021) Xu, Shunqi; Sun, Hanjun; Addicoat, Matthew; Biswal, Bishnu P.; He, Fan; Park, SangWook; Paasch, Silvia; Zhang, Tao; Sheng, Wenbo; Brunner, Eike; Hou, Yang; Richter, Marcus; Feng, Xinliang
    Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water reduction, converting solar energy into environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel, requires delicate design and synthesis of semiconductors with appropriate bandgaps, suitable energy levels of the frontier orbitals, and high intrinsic charge mobility. In this work, the synthesis of a novel bithiophene-bridged donor–acceptor-based 2D sp2-carbon-linked conjugated polymer (2D CCP) is demonstrated. The Knoevenagel polymerization between the electron-accepting building block 2,3,8,9,14,15-hexa(4-formylphenyl) diquinoxalino[2,3-a:2′,3′-c]phenazine (HATN-6CHO) and the first electron-donating linker 2,2′-([2,2′-bithiophene]-5,5′-diyl)diacetonitrile (ThDAN) provides the 2D CCP-HATNThDAN (2D CCP-Th). Compared with the corresponding biphenyl-bridged 2D CCP-HATN-BDAN (2D CCP-BD), the bithiophene-based 2D CCP-Th exhibits a wide light-harvesting range (up to 674 nm), a optical energy gap (2.04 eV), and highest energy occupied molecular orbital–lowest unoccupied molecular orbital distributions for facilitated charge transfer, which make 2D CCP-Th a promising candidate for PEC water reduction. As a result, 2D CCP-Th presents a superb H2-evolution photocurrent density up to ≈7.9 µA cm−2 at 0 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, which is superior to the reported 2D covalent organic frameworks and most carbon nitride materials (0.09–6.0 µA cm−2). Density functional theory calculations identify the thiophene units and cyano substituents at the vinylene linkage as active sites for the evolution of H2. © 2020 The Authors. Advanced Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
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    Synthesis and Self-Assembly Behavior of Double Ullazine-Based Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
    (Stuttgart : Georg Thieme, 2021) Richter, Marcus; Borkowski, Michał; Fu, Yubin; Dmitrieva, Evgenia; Popov, Alexey A.; Ma, Ji; Marszalek, Tomasz; Pisula, Wojciech; Feng, Xinliang
    Polycyclic aromatic azomethine ylides (PAMY, 1) are versatile building blocks for the bottom-up synthesis of nitrogen-containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (N-PAHs). Although the chemistry of PAMY was already established few years ago, the cycloaddition of a double PAMY building block has not been reported so far. In this work, we demonstrate the first cycloaddition of a PAMY-dimer (6), which opens the access to three different alkyl ester-substituted N-PAHs with a laterally extended double ullazine scaffold (DU-1, DU-2 and DU-3). Interestingly, the cyclic voltammetry of DU-1-3 exhibited three reversible oxidation waves, which confirmed the electron-rich nature of the double ullazine scaffold. Furthermore, in-situ spectroelectrochemistry study of ethylhexyl ester-substituted DU-3 revealed the formation of different cationic species with new absorption bands up to 1689 nm. Additionally, the influence of the attached substituents on the film formation and supramolecular organization in the thin films were investigated by polarized optical microscopy and grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering.