Ultrathin perovskite based solar cells with the efficiency enhanced by charge transfer process

We report a new approach of improving the solar cells efficiency based on ultrathin perovskite films. We propose the addition of CuPc compound to perovskite active layer for enhanced charge generation and transfer process by charge transfer process between CuPc and perovskite. The performance of the devices with and without addition of CuPc was studied in respect to thickness of the active layer. The thickness was varied by the change of the spin coating speed in the range of 4000, 7000 and 10000 rpm, different concentration of CuPc also been studied. The process of charge carrier recombination, crystallinity and Raman characteristics of the obtained films was studied. The perovskite device with an active layer of MAPbI₃ mixed with CuPc spin coated with the speed of 10000 rpm with thickness of about 150 nm demonstrated the efficiency of 12.7%. The ultrathin mixed perovskite film (10000 rpm perovskite film of 15% CuPc) based device presents 33% thickness and 85% efficiency of common pure perovskite device (4000 rpm pure perovskite film).     

酞菁蓝/蒽醌蓝研磨复配炭黑对织物印花色相的影响

将酞菁蓝颜料及蒽醌蓝与炭黑复配,以木质素磺酸钠为分散剂,用砂磨法制备纯黑色相炭黑色浆。结果显示,研磨1 h后粒径在108 nm左右,炭黑分布较窄,PDI为0. 083 9;SEM测试显示分散体颗粒大小分布均匀,分散性良好;该水性炭黑色浆体系稳定性较好。随着体系蓝色用量增加2. 5%,色浆a^*、b^*值均趋近于0,接近于纯黑色相。     

Synthesis of a N-doped mesoporous carbon as an efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction

A facile and effective approach was developed for the preparation of mesoporous Fe-NC by pyrolyzing the mixture of FeCl₂, urea, (NH₄)₂MoO₇, phthalic anhydride and SBA-15, during which the in-situ formation of iron phthalocyanine is confirmed. The obtained catalyst exhibits high catalytic activity towards ORR, whose half-wave potential can be 53 mV more positive than that of commercial Pt/C catalyst. Besides, the catalyst also exhibits high selectivity of four electron path, along with excellent stability and methanol tolerance in alkaline media. Based on the characterization results, we suggest, the higher surface areas, highly porous structures induced by SBA-15 addition, as well as high graphitic N content should be the proper origins for its outstanding catalytic performance.     

Optimization of quinacridone magenta,Cu-phthalocyanine cyan,and arylide yellow ink films formulated for maximum color gamut

Investigation of ink formulation options with the purpose to obtain color-gamut-optimal set of Cyan Magenta and Yellow CMY inks is reported. Implementation of the thickness dependent Kubelka-Munk model on multiple ink layers having different and well-defined thicknesses, provides characteristic absorption and scattering (K, S ) spectra of the ink ingredients. These data enable accurate computation of the reflectance spectrum and thus the L*a*b* color coordinates for any given ink thickness or substrate. Pigment materials investigated are quinacridone as magenta, copper-phthalocyanine as cyan, and arylide yellow. Scaling the peak of the absorption band to the number of molecules per unit area for the specific pigments studied in this article provides the molar extinction coefficients, 1.21 × 10⁴ , 4.7 × 10⁴ , and 3.3 × 10⁴ cm²/millimole respectively, regardless of the different ink formulations used, in accord with Avogadro's principle. Having a set of three pairs of K, S spectra is used to compute the color gamut of any CMY color combination in the L*a*b* space as a function of ink layer thickness and formulation. Using an iterative algorithm, a color-gamut-optimal set of CMY inks is obtained.     

Metal phthalocyanine-linked conjugated microporous polymer hybridized with carbon nanotubes as a high-performance flexible electrode for supercapacitors

Metal phthalocyanine-linked conjugated microporous polymers (MPc-CMPs) have huge potential applications in energy conversion and storage systems. However, the inherent low conductivity limits their practical application. Herein, the MPc-CMPs are hybridized with highly conductive carbon nanotubes (CNTs) via the easy vacuum filtration method. Interestingly, the composite (denoted as CoPc-CMP/CNTs) shows the flexible feature, which can be served as the flexible binder-free electrode for supercapacitors (SCs). As expected, the flexible CoPc-CMP/CNTs exhibits a high specific capacitance of 289.1 F g⁻¹ at a current density of 1 A g⁻¹ and good capacity retention of 82.4% over 1350 cycles at a high current density of 10 A g⁻¹. Furthermore, First-principle calculations are used to elucidate the superiority of CoPc-CMP to other analogues. The good electrochemical performance could be attributed to the synergistic effect from the high pseudocapacitance and good conductivity of CoPc-CMP as well as the capacitive contribution and good conductivity of CNTs. Our strategy provides a new avenue to develop the high-performance SCs via rational integration of MPc-CMPs with highly conductive CNTs.     

Ethylthio-substituted sandwich phthalocyaninato europium (III) semiconductors for sensing NO2 and NH3: Effect of the extended π-conjugate systems on tuning the conductivity and sensing behavior

By using the π-conjugated phthalocyanine macrocycle as the versatile building block, a series of five sandwich-type ethylthio substituted phthalocyaninato europium complexes, namely double-decker Eu[Pc(SC₂H₅)₈]₂ (Pc-1), triple-decker Eu₂[Pc(SC₂H₅)₈]₃ (Pc-2), and their corresponding dimers, [Pc(SC₂H₅)₈]₂Eu₂[BiPc(SC₂H₅)₁₂] (Pc-1@Pc-1), [Pc(SC₂H₅)₈]₃Eu₃[BiPc(SC₂H₅)₁₂] (Pc-1@Pc-2) and [Pc(SC₂H₅)₈]₄Eu₄[BiPc(SC₂H₅)₁₂] (Pc-2@Pc-2), are synthesized and prepared into the solution-processed films by a simple quasi-Langmuir-Shäfer (QLS) method. Combination between the extending π-conjugated system in the longitudinal and transverse directions of Pc macrocycles and/or radical nature of Pc-1 unit among different semiconducting molecules result in unusually small energy gaps (0.345–0.91 eV). Consequently, all of the semiconductors exhibit excellent conductivities. Among these materials, the conductivity for the radical species Pc-1@Pc-1, Pc-1@Pc-2 and Pc-1 is about 3–4 times larger than that for the non-radical compounds Pc-2@Pc-2 and Pc-2. Moreover, the QLS films of five semiconductors take excellent linear responses for both oxidizing NO₂ (100–300 ppb) and reducing NH₃ (4–8.6 ppm). Respectively, the sensitivity (in % ppm⁻¹) gets increased in the order of Pc-1 < Pc-2 < Pc-1@Pc-1 < Pc-1@Pc-2 < Pc-2@Pc-2 for NO₂, and Pc-1@Pc-2 < Pc-1 < Pc-1@Pc-1 < Pc-2@Pc-2 < Pc-2 for NH₃. Depending on the highly extended π-conjugated systems, Pc-2@Pc-2 and Pc-2 films achieve the highest sensitivity of 208.2% ppm⁻¹ and 0.97% ppm⁻¹ to NO₂ and NH₃, respectively. In addition, with a less than 2 min response time within a limit of detection at 10 ppb for NO₂ and 0.48 ppm for NH₃, good reproducibility and selectivity have been revealed for the Pc-2@Pc-2 and Pc-2 films among the best gas sensors obtained so far for all the solution-processed films based on organic semiconductors in dry air at room temperature. More importantly, it is firstly demonstrated that the high NO₂ sensing is resulted from low Oxd₁, and high NH₃ sensing is resulted from high Red₁ among the sandwich Pc-based semiconductors.     

金属酞菁/卟啉分子电催化CO2还原的研究进展

大气中日益增加的CO₂浓度导致了气候变化等环境问题。将CO₂催化转化为有价值的化学品具有重要意义。利用太阳能、风能等可再生能源产生的电能,通过电化学方法将CO₂还原转化为有价值的碳基化合物是最具有应用前景的方式。分子催化剂具有明确的结构和清晰的活性位点,可实现基于机理的性能优化。综述了近年来金属酞菁/卟啉分子在电催化CO₂还原为CO的实验和理论方面的最新研究进展。首先,介绍了金属酞菁/卟啉分子电催化CO₂还原为CO的详细机理。然后,重点介绍了如何通过分子分散和配体修饰提升金属酞菁/卟啉分子电催化CO₂还原为CO的活性和选择性。最后,讨论了金属酞菁/卟啉分子电催化CO₂还原存在的挑战及其可能的解决方案。     

Water-gated phthalocyanine transistors: Operation and transduction of the peptide–enzyme interaction

The use of aqueous solutions as the gate medium is an attractive strategy to obtain high charge carrier density (10¹² cm⁻²) and low operational voltages (<1 V) in organic transistors. Additionally, it provides a simple and favorable architecture to couple both ionic and electronic domains in a single device, which is crucial for the development of novel technologies in bioelectronics. Here, we demonstrate the operation of transistors containing copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) thin-films gated with water and discuss the charge dynamics at the CuPc/water interface. Without the need for complex multilayer patterning, or the use of surface treatments, water-gated CuPc transistors exhibited low threshold (100 ± 20 mV) and working voltages (<1 V) compared to conventional CuPc transistors, along with similar charge carrier mobilities (1.2 ± 0.2) x 10⁻³ cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. Several device characteristics such as moderate switching speeds and hysteresis, associated with high capacitances at low frequencies upon bias application (3.4–12 μF cm⁻²), indicate the occurrence of interfacial ion doping. Finally, water-gated CuPc OTFTs were employed in the transduction of the biospecific interaction between tripeptide reduced glutathione (GSH) and glutathione S-transferase (GST) enzyme, taking advantage of the device sensitivity and multiparametricity.     

A near-infrared dye for dye-sensitized solar cell: Catecholate-functionalized zinc phthalocyanine

The design and synthesis of an asymmetrical zinc phthalocyanine sensitizer modified with a catechol anchoring group is reported. The performance of this sensitizer was evaluated in a dye-sensitized solar cell. A strong interaction between the catechol dye and TiO₂ (with the formation of a five-membered charge-transfer complex) was evidenced by a strong shift in the Q-band of the ZnPc-Cat from 680 nm in solution to 750 nm on TiO₂, along with an appreciable absorption tail extending to ∼1000 nm. The fabricated solar cell containing the phthalocyanine sensitizer showed relatively high light-to-electron conversion efficiency (η = 0.92%), considering that few catechol dyes exceed η = 0.7% in dye-sensitized solar cells. Values of I_sc = 2.53 mA cm⁻² and V_oc = 540 mV were obtained, referring to a standard N719 cell (η = 6.46%). A comparison of zinc phthalocyanine sensitizers bearing different anchoring groups affirmed the superiority of carboxylate groups relative to those bearing catechol groups in terms of cell performance.