Macrocycle Self-Assembly Hydrogel for High-Efficient Oil-Water Separation.

Supramolecular hydrogels involved macrocycles have been explored widely in recent years, but it remains challenging to develop hydrogel based on solitary macrocycle with super gelation capability. Here, the construction of lantern[33 ]arene-based hydrogel with low critical gelation concentration (0.05 wt%), which can be used for efficient oil-water separation, is reported. The lantern[33 ]arenes self-assemble into hydrogen-bonded organic nanoribbons, which intertwine into entangled fibers to form hydrogel. This hydrogel which exhibits reversible pH-responsiveness characteristics can be coated on stainless-steel mesh by in situ sol-gel transformation. The resultant mesh exhibits excellent oil-water separation efficiency (>99%) and flux (>6 × 104 L m-2 h-1 ). This lantern[33 ]arene-based hydrogel not only sheds additional light on the gelation mechanisms for supramolecular hydrogels, but also extends the application of macrocycle-based hydrogels as functional interfacial materials.

Solution-processed and high-performance organic solar cells using small molecules with a benzodithiophene unit.

Three small molecules named DR3TBDTT, DR3TBDTT-HD, and DR3TBD2T with a benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene (BDT) unit as the central building block have been designed and synthesized for solution-processed bulk-heterojunction solar cells. Power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 8.12% (certified 7.61%) and 8.02% under AM 1.5G irradiation (100 mW cm(-2)) have been achieved for DR3TBDTT- and DR3TBDT2T-based organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) with PC71BM as the acceptor, respectively. The better PCEs were achieved by improving the short-circuit current density without sacrificing the high open-circuit voltage and fill factor through the strategy of incorporating the advantages of both conventional small molecules and polymers for OPVs.

Small molecules based on benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene unit for high-performance solution-processed organic solar cells.

Small molecules, namely, DCAO(3)TBDT and DR(3)TBDT, with 2-ethylhexoxy substituted BDT as the central building block and octyl cyanoacetate and 3-ethylrhodanine as different terminal units with the same linkage of dioctyltertthiophene, have been designed and synthesized. The photovoltaic properties of these two molecules as donors and fullerene derivatives as the acceptors in bulk heterojunction solar cells are studied. Among them, DR(3)TBDT shows excellent photovoltaic performance, and power conversion efficiency as high as 7.38% (certified 7.10%) under AM 1.5G irradiation (100 mW cm(-2)) has been achieved using the simple solution spin-coating fabrication process, which is the highest efficiency reported to date for any small-molecule-based solar cells. The results demonstrate that structure fine turning could cause significant performance difference and with that the performance of solution-processed small-molecule solar cells can indeed be comparable with or even surpass their polymer counterparts.