Bannock, JH

Chabinyc, M

De Mello, JC

Heeney, M

Stingelin, N

Treat, N

Scientific Reports

English

We report the influence of different polymer purification procedures on the photovoltaic performance of
bulk heterojunction solar cells formed from binary blends of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and
fullerenes. Selective Soxhlet extractions and metal scavenging agents were used to remove residual
monomer, magnesium salt by-products and catalyst from high-weight P3HT (Mw 121 kg/mol, PDI 1.8,
RR 99%) synthesised by the Grignard metathesis (GRIM) polymerization route. Using phenyl-C61-
butyric acid methyl ester (PC60BM) as an electron acceptor, we observed an increase in average power
conversion efficiency from 2.3 to 4.8 % in going from crude to fully purified material. Using indene-C60
bisadduct (IC60BA) in place of PC60BM, we observed a further increase to an average value of 6.6 %,
which is high for a bulk heterojunction formed from a binary blend of P3HT and C60 fullerene derivatives

de Mello, JC

Spiral - Imperial College Digital Repository

The influence of polymer purification on the efficiency of poly(3-hexylthiophene):fullerene organic solar cells

http://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/29977/2/ScientificReports_Accepted.pdf

The influence of polymer purification on the efficiency of poly(3-hexylthiophene):fullerene organic solar cells

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