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Facile synthesis of poly(3-hexylthiophene)-block-poly(ethylene oxide) copolymers via Steglich esterification

This paper describes the synthesis of a series of new diblock co-polymers engineered specifically to address the “delamination problem” that prevents organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs) from being commercially viable. The metal-free nature of the synthesis, which critically is also amenable to industrial scale-up, means these materials are of significant interest for organic electronics, especially OPV applications. Consequently, these new materials, developed at Aston within ESTABLIS, (large (4M) EU-funded consortium of 11 partners), are currently being assessed by Belectric OPV world-leaders in OPV technology (CTO, Dr Egelhaaf, hans-joachim.egelhaaf@belectric.com) and Merck (Southampton, Dr Tierney, steven.tierney@merckgroup.com) for their utility in OPVs.