Enabling polymer acceptors for all-polymer solar cells

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Great effort has been devoted to explore renewable energy resources to alleviate the reliance of our economy on fossil fuels and protect our environment. Among a variety of renewable energy resources, solar energy is most attractive because it is most abundant, ubiquitous, low-cost (free), and clean. Solar cells can harvest and convert solar energy into electricity, which is a favored form of energy for use. Polymer solar cells, which have superb mechanical properties and can be manufactured at ultra-low cost, have emerged as a very promising renewable energy solution. While remarkable progress has been made in recent years to improve the power conversion efficiency of polymer solar cells, there still exist several barriers to the commercialization of this technology, which are mainly originated from the limitations of some key materials currently used, especially the electron acceptors. This project will develop enabling polymer acceptor materials to replace the currently dominating fullerene-based acceptors to enable all-polymer solar cells (APSCs), which are expected to have improved lifetime, industrial manufacturability, and lower cost. This research encompasses a number of scientific and engineering disciplines such as organic chemistry, polymer chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science and engineering, nanotechnology, electrochemistry, and electrical engineering. Through this research, new knowledge will be created for these disciplines. Innovations made in this research will be useful for several related Canadian industry sectors including chemicals, printing, textiles, energy, housing, automobile, and telecommunication. Commercialization of the APSCs technology will benefit all of the above industrial sectors from production of chemicals to the manufacturing, distribution, and installation of APSCs. A wide-spread application of APSCs will reduce the use of fossil fuels, protect our environment, boost our economy, and improve the life quality of Canadians.