Jennifer Tasneem

October 23, 2015

Synthesis of Organic Donor Molecules for the Functionalization of TiO2 Nanotubes via “Click” Chemistry

In recent years, there has been a lot of research going into the development of solar cells which are reliable, inexpensive and highly efficient. The role of wide band gap semiconducting TiO2 has been well established for this purpose in the field of photovoltaics, because it allows devices to operate at very high voltages and at the same time is energy and cost efficient. TiO2 nanotubes can be used as a template for the deposition of various photoactive organic molecules for the development of different types of organic and inorganic solar cells. Thus the walls of the nanotubes can be “decorated” with a wide array of organic molecules which can eventually lead to the fabrication of the first elusive interdigitated heterojunction solar cell which will have efficiency much greater than 10%. This summer, I completed a research internship at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany on synthesizing a small library of organic molecules to be utilized in the functionalization of TiO2 nanotubes. The organic molecules were synthesized using “click” reactions that have been recognized to be highly efficient and producing good yields. In my presentation, I will be talking about my synthesis method as well as the processes I used to isolate the products.