Metallopolymers for energy production, storage and conservation

Abstract

With the world awareness of energy crisis and low carbon economy, there is an ever-growing demand for renewable energy resources, energy saving products and reliable energy storage devices. Metallopolymers play an increasingly important role as functional materials for energy production, conservation and storage. In this review, we explore the recent advances of metallopolymers in the areas of organic solar cells, white light organic light-emitting diodes and lithium-ion batteries. The structure-property relationship of these polymers and their device performance are specially emphasized and described.Energy storage techniques, especially the lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), are of great importance in the mobile society today due to their high energy density and high output voltage. Although the LIBs that are commonly used nowadays are dominated by inorganic metal complexes in the electronic device market, the rapid progress in portable electronics, such as the ultra-thin, ultra-lightweight and flexible devices, brings new challenges to the bulky and rigid conventional LIBs. 8 For the sake of matching practical requirements and market demands, organic batteries based on redox-active polymers with robust structures have currently become an area of considerable research interest. 9−12On the other hand, lighting consumes over 20% of the total electricity produced in the earth. A majority of such energy consumption and cost comes from the traditional light sources such as incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lamps used in residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Therefore, interest and demand for more energy-efficient products for general lighting purposes is growing rapidly.Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) hold promise for use in display applications and for general illumination for many reasons, including their improved efficiency and low cost. 13 Phosphorescence emissions from metal-containing materials are found to be useful for OLED applications. The efficiency of energy conversion in OLEDs can be enhanced by up to four times, which enable white OLEDs to become a potential new source of "green" solid-state lighting. By embedding metal elements into polymeric scaffolds, both of the physical and chemical characteristics of the resulting organometallic materials can be finely tuned, which combine the optical and 7 Conjugated polymers have received increasing attention as ready-processed organic semiconductor materials. Unlike pure organic conjugated polymers, mixing of metal and ligand orbitals can occur in metallopolymers, which results in special features in these materials. Especially in the Pt(II) acetylenic polymeric framework MP1, π-conjugation of the ligand is preserved through metal 22 and their photophysical properties and photovoltaic responses can be fine-tuned by structural modification of the aromatic spacer (Ar). Due to the presence of Pt(II) heavy metal which induces strong spin-orbit coupling, and thus makes singlet to triplet intersystem crossing to be rapid and efficient, Pt(II) conjugate...

Main-chain metallopolymers at the static–dynamic boundary based on nickelocene

“…[1][2][3] In many cases the binding of the metal ions within the ligating 1D architecture is strong and static in nature, leading to materials with a range of useful properties but which resemble traditional covalent polymers.…”

“…20,[22][23][24] For example, dicarba [2]cobaltocenophane 2 ( Fig. 1c), containing a 19 VE Co centre, undergoes thermal ROP and subsequent oxidation to yield poly(cobaltoceniumethylene) ([PCE] + ), a watersoluble polyelectrolyte with main-chain cobaltocenium units (Fig.…”

Unique Bora[1]ferrocenophanes with Sterically Protected Boron: A Potential Gateway to Helical Polyferrocenes

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Out of many methodologies to prepare metallopolymers,r ing-opening polymerization (ROP)o fs trained ferrocenophanes (FCPs) had been extensively applied in the past. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Out of many methodologies to prepare metallopolymers,r ing-opening polymerization (ROP)o fs trained ferrocenophanes (FCPs) had been extensively applied in the past.…”

Unique Bora[1]ferrocenophanes with Sterically Protected Boron: A Potential Gateway to Helical Polyferrocenes

“…There has been significant improvement in the field of organometallic polymers in last few years. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Out of many methodologies to prepare metallopolymers,r ing-opening polymerization (ROP)o fs trained ferrocenophanes (FCPs) had been extensively applied in the past. [2,9] Unambiguously, sila [1]ferrocenophanes (A,F igure 1) are the most intensively studied strained compounds amongst the plethora of [n]FCPs reported since the discovery of the first FCP,acarbon-bridged [3]FCP,i n1 957.…”