Thiazole Imide-Based All-Acceptor Homopolymer with Branched Ethylene Glycol Side Chains for Organic Thermoelectrics

Yongqiang Shi; Jianfeng Li; Hengda Sun; Yongchun Li; Yimei Wang; Ziang Wu; Sang Young Jeong; Han Young Woo; Simone Fabiano; Xugang Guo

doi:10.1002/anie.202214192

Thiazole Imide-Based All-Acceptor Homopolymer with Branched Ethylene Glycol Side Chains for Organic Thermoelectrics

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2022 Dec 19;61(51):e202214192. doi: 10.1002/anie.202214192. Epub 2022 Nov 21.

Authors

Yongqiang Shi¹, Jianfeng Li², Hengda Sun^{3

4}, Yongchun Li², Yimei Wang², Ziang Wu⁵, Sang Young Jeong⁵, Han Young Woo⁵, Simone Fabiano⁴, Xugang Guo²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Functional Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, and School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, Anhui 241002, China.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), No. 1088, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China.
³ State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, 2999 North Renmin Road, Shanghai, 201620, China.
⁴ Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University, SE-60174, Norrköping, Sweden.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 136-713, Republic of Korea.

PMID: 36282628
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202214192

Abstract

n-Type semiconducting polymers with high thermoelectric performance remain challenging due to the scarcity of molecular design strategy, limiting their applications in organic thermoelectric (OTE) devices. Herein, we provide a new approach to enhance the OTE performance of n-doped polymers by introducing acceptor-acceptor (A-A) type backbone bearing branched ethylene glycol (EG) side chains. When doped with 4-(2,3-dihydro-1,3-dimethyl-1H-benzimidazol-2-yl)-N,N-dimethylbenzenamine (N-DMBI), the A-A homopolymer PDTzTI-TEG exhibits n-type electrical conductivity (σ) up to 34 S cm^-1 and power factor value of 15.7 μW m^-1 K^-2 . The OTE performance of PDTzTI-TEG is far greater than that of homopolymer PBTI-TEG (σ=0.27 S cm^-1 ), indicating that introducing electron-deficient thiazole units in the backbone further improves the n-doping efficiency. These results demonstrate that developing A-A type polymers with EG side chains is an effective strategy to enhance n-type OTE performance.

Keywords: Conductivity; Doping; Ethylene Glycol; Homopolymers; Organic Thermoelectrics.

Grants and funding

22105004/National Natural Science Foundation of China