Design and morphology control of a thiophene derivative through electrospraying using various solvents

Abstract

In the present work, electrospraying of an organic molecule is carried out using various solvents, obtaining fibril structures along with a range of distinct morphologies. Solvent characteristics play a major role in achieving the morphology of the organic material. A thiophene derivative (7, 9-di (thiophen-2-yl)-8H-cyclopenta[a]acenaphthylen-8-one) (DTCPA) of donor-acceptordonor (DAD) architecture is used to study this solvent effect. Seven solvents with decreasing vapour pressure are selected for experiments. Electrospraying is conducted at a solution concentration of 1.5 wt % and a constant applied voltage of 15 kV. Gradual transformation in morphology of the electrospun product from spikes-sphere to only spikes is observed. A mechanism describing this transformation is proposed based on the electron micrograph analysis and XRD analysis. These data indicate that the morphological change is due to the synergistic effect of both vapour pressure and dielectric constant of the solvents. Through a reasonable control over the crystallites size and morphology along with supporting transformation mechanism theory, this study elucidates electrospraying as a prospective method for designing the architectures in organic electronics.

Electrospraying: Possibilities and Challenges of Engineering Carriers for Biomedical Applications—A Mini Review

“…Thirdly, it can reproducibly provide drug-loaded nano/microparticles (5 nm−100 μm) with a narrow size distribution (Chen and Pui, 1997); Coulombic repulsion between the highly charged electrosprayed droplets results in self-dispersion particles without coalescence (Xu and Hanna, 2006). Last, but not least, through adjustment of the above-mentioned solution factors and processing parameters, carriers in different structures can be obtained, such as hollow microspheres (Jafari-Nodoushan et al, 2015; Zhou et al, 2017), nanocups (Kiran et al, 2016), porous microcarriers (Gao et al, 2015; Karimian et al, 2016; Huang et al, 2017), cell-shaped microparticles (Khanum et al, 2015; Ju et al, 2017), core–shell/multilayered microspheres (Rasekh et al, 2017; Zhang et al, 2017a), and Janus particles (Sanchez-Vazquez et al, 2017; Li et al, 2018). The schematic diagram of the structures can be found in Figure 1, and the real images can be found in the referred publications.…”

Template-Free Construction of Tin Oxide Porous Hollow Microspheres for Room-Temperature Gas Sensors

“…The operating temperature of the sensor is as low as 40 °C. Assisted by soft templates such as poly­(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP), polystyrene (PS), polylactide (PLA), and polycaprolactone (PCL), hollow micro/nanostructures have been achieved via an electrospraying deposition method. − Suhendi et al reported electrospraying of colloidal nanoparticles (silica nanoparticles and PS spheres) to form porous and hollow particles . A heat treatment was conducted at 500 °C to remove the PS and resulted in the hollow-structured particle.…”

Structure and Morphology-Dependent Electrical Characteristics of Conjugated Organic Crystals Acquired by Various Growth Methods

“…28 Additionally, DTCPA has shown promising results both as donor and acceptor for applications in organic photovoltaics. [29][30][31][32] The electrosprayed DTCPA exhibited various morphologies such as spike-sphere and only spikes when dissolved in various solvents, 33 and also exhibited barbed-wire nanofiber morphology when blended with poly(ethylene oxide). 34 DTCPA was also explored by thermally evaporating it at various deposition rates, thereby tuning the diode characteristics.…”