Molecular engineering of new phenothiazine-based D–A–π–A dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells†
Xiaofeng Zhang,Faliang Gou,Jian Shi,Hong Gao,Cailing Xu,Zhenping Zhu
RSC Advances Pub Date : 10/24/2016 00:00:00 , DOI:10.1039/C6RA20769C
Abstract

A new series of phenothiazine-based D–A–π–A dyes PZ-1–4 have been designed, synthesized and fully characterized by 1H, 13C NMR, HRMS, UV-vis, fluorescence, and cyclic voltammetry spectroscopy. Benzothiadiazole was introduced into the D–π–A dyes as an additional acceptor. Various donors and new π-spacers have been connected to phenothiazine skeleton on opposite sides to generate PZ-2–4 dyes. The DSSC devices have been systematically investigated by photoelectrochemical experiments, the solar cell of PZ-4 with a simple hexyloxyphenyl group achieves the highest photoelectric conversion efficiency of 6.35%. Density functional theory (DFT) calculation results demonstrate that the large dihedral angle (36.3°) between the π-spacer and phenothiazine in PZ-4 induces better charge separation. Its largest semicircle at intermediate frequencies in electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) prevents the recombination of photoelectrons injected into the titanium dioxide (TiO2) conductive band with I3 in electrolyte, which might be caused by the blocking interaction of the hexyloxy group dye.

Graphical abstract: Molecular engineering of new phenothiazine-based D–A–π–A dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells