Tailoring functional organic materials through supramolecular chemistry

通过超分子化学定制功能有机材料

• 批准号: 238724-2011
• 负责人: Williams, Vance
• 金额: $ 2.55万
• 依托单位: Simon Fraser University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=570478
• 关键词: Tailoring; functional; organic; materials; through

Statement for public disclosure Finding better ways to manage our material and energy resources represents one of the most pressing challenges facing our society. Our research focuses on the design of new functional organic materials for applications such as solar cells and catalyst recycling using a combination of fundamental and applied chemical research. This work can be broadly divided into two major research themes: 1. Photoswitchable reagents and catalysts. Catalysts play a crucial role in virtually every major chemical manufacturing process. One of the difficulties associated with the use of catalysts is that they are difficult to remove from the reaction mixtures in which they work; separating these catalysts, either so that they can be reused or because their continued presence is detrimental, is often a difficult challenge that necessitates the use of costly, time-consuming and waste-producing processes. We propose to use the expertise that we have developed over the past decade in the design of photoswitchable molecules, which reversibly change their properties when irradiated with light, to develop new methods of separating catalysts from the reactions mixtures. At the heart of our approach is the creation of catalysts that can be reversibly switched between a catalytically active soluble form and an insoluble form that can be efficiently separated by simple filtration. 2. Columnar liquid crystals are a class of soft materials that have emerged as promising organic semiconductors for applications such as light emitting devices (OLEDs) and photovoltaics (solar cells). We are interested in the factors that control why some molecules, called discotic mesogens, exhibit columnar liquid crystal phases over broad temperature ranges, whereas similar molecules fail to form these phases at all. Ultimately, we are trying to answer the question of whether we can predict the macroscopic properties of a material based on the structure of its constituent molecules. Our ongoing research goal is to probe how changes in the size, shape, symmetry and electronic properties impact on the formation of these materials.

公开披露声明 寻找更好的方法来管理我们的物质和能源资源是我们社会面临的最紧迫的挑战之一。我们的研究重点是结合基础和应用化学研究，设计用于太阳能电池和催化剂回收等应用的新型功能有机材料。 这项工作大致可以分为两大研究主题： 1. 光开关试剂和催化剂。 催化剂几乎在每个主要的化学制造过程中都发挥着至关重要的作用。 与使用催化剂相关的困难之一是它们很难从它们起作用的反应混合物中除去。分离这些催化剂，无论是为了它们可以重复使用，还是因为它们的持续存在是有害的，通常是一项艰巨的挑战，需要使用昂贵、耗时且产生废物的工艺。 我们建议利用过去十年在光开关分子设计方面开发的专业知识，这些分子在光照射下可逆地改变其性质，开发从反应混合物中分离催化剂的新方法。 我们方法的核心是创建可以在催化活性可溶形式和可通过简单过滤有效分离的不溶形式之间可逆转换的催化剂。 2. 柱状液晶是一类软材料，已成为有前途的有机半导体，可用于发光器件（OLED）和光伏（太阳能电池）等应用。我们感兴趣的是控制为什么一些被称为盘状介晶的分子在较宽的温度范围内表现出柱状液晶相的因素，而类似的分子根本无法形成这些相。 最终，我们试图回答这样的问题：我们是否可以根据材料组成分子的结构来预测材料的宏观特性。 我们正在进行的研究目标是探讨尺寸、形状、对称性和电子特性的变化如何影响这些材料的形成。