Durgun E, Grossman Jeffrey C
†Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
J Phys Chem Lett. 2013 Mar 21;4(6):854-60. doi: 10.1021/jz301877n. Epub 2013 Mar 4.
Solar-thermal fuels reversibly store solar energy in the chemical bonds of molecules by photoconversion, and can release this stored energy in the form of heat upon activation. Many conventional photoswichable molecules could be considered as solar thermal fuels, although they suffer from low energy density or short lifetime in the photoinduced high-energy metastable state, rendering their practical use unfeasible. We present a new approach to the design of chemistries for solar thermal fuel applications, wherein well-known photoswitchable molecules are connected by different linker agents to form molecular rings. This approach allows for a significant increase in both the amount of stored energy per molecule and the stability of the fuels. Our results suggest a range of possibilities for tuning the energy density and thermal stability as a function of the type of the photoswitchable molecule, the ring size, or the type of linkers.
太阳能热燃料通过光转换将太阳能可逆地存储在分子的化学键中，并在激活时以热的形式释放这种存储的能量。许多传统的光开关分子可被视为太阳能热燃料，尽管它们存在能量密度低或在光诱导的高能亚稳态下寿命短的问题，使其实际应用不可行。我们提出了一种用于太阳能热燃料应用的化学设计新方法，其中通过不同的连接剂将著名的光开关分子连接形成分子环。这种方法能够显著提高每个分子的存储能量以及燃料的稳定性。我们的结果表明，根据光开关分子的类型、环大小或连接剂的类型来调节能量密度和热稳定性存在一系列可能性。
