Diffusion-Cooperative Model for Charge Transport by Redox-Active Nonconjugated Polymers

J Am Chem Soc. 2018 Jan 24;140(3):1049-1056. doi: 10.1021/jacs.7b11272. Epub 2018 Jan 9.

Abstract

Charge transport processes in nonconjugated redox-active polymers with electrolytes were studied using a diffusion-cooperative model. For the first time, we quantitatively rationalized that the limited Brownian motion of the redox centers bound to the polymers resulted in the 103-4-fold decline of the bimolecular and heterogeneous charge transfer rate constants, which had been unexplained for half a century. As a next-generation design, a redox-active supramolecular system with high physical mobility was proposed to achieve the rate constant as high as in free solution system (>107 M-1 s-1) and populated site density (>1 mol/L).

Publication types

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