The influence of polymer purification on the efficiency of poly(3-hexylthiophene):fullerene organic solar cells

James H Bannock; Neil D Treat; Michael Chabinyc; Natalie Stingelin; Martin Heeney; John C de Mello

doi:10.1038/srep23651

The influence of polymer purification on the efficiency of poly(3-hexylthiophene):fullerene organic solar cells

Sci Rep. 2016 Mar 31:6:23651. doi: 10.1038/srep23651.

Authors

James H Bannock^{1

2}, Neil D Treat^{1

3

4}, Michael Chabinyc⁴, Natalie Stingelin^{1

3}, Martin Heeney^{1

2}, John C de Mello^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
² Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
³ Department of Materials, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
⁴ Materials Research Laboratory, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93117, USA.

Abstract

We report the influence of different polymer purification procedures on the photovoltaic performance of bulk heterojunction solar cells formed from binary blends of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and fullerenes. Selective Soxhlet extractions and metal scavenging agents were used to remove residual monomer, magnesium salt by-products and catalyst from high-weight P3HT (Mw 121 kg/mol, PDI 1.8, RR 99%) synthesised by the Grignard metathesis (GRIM) polymerization route. Using phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC60BM) as an electron acceptor, we observed an increase in average power conversion efficiency from 2.3 to 4.8% in going from crude to fully purified material. Using indene-C60 bisadduct (IC60BA) in place of PC60BM, we observed a further increase to an average value of 6.6% - high for a bulk heterojunction formed from a binary blend of P3HT and C60 fullerene derivatives.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.