Incorporation of Sequence Aza-Substitution and Thiophene Bridge in Linear Conjugated Polymers Toward Highly Efficient Photo-Catalytic Hydrogen Evolution.

The hydrogen evolution performance of organic photo-catalysts is lagged by numerous factors, such as the narrow photon absorption window, low charge transport, and so on. In this paper, four linear conjugated polymers are designed and synthesized based on dibenzothiophene-S,S-dioxide as an acceptor, and aza-substituted thiophene-phenyl-thiophene with different substitution numbers as co-units. The polymers with the thiophene bridge and aza-substitution exhibit broad visible absorption because of the extended conjugated length and improved planar structures resulting from the intramolecular non-covalent interactions (S···N or CH···N). The mono-substitution polymer without the addition of any co-catalysts shows the highest photo-catalytic performances with the hydrogen evolution rates of 8950 and 7388 µmol g-1 h-1 under the UV-vis (>295 nm) and visible (>420 nm) irradiation, respectively. The corresponding apparent quantum yields are as high as 8.34, 5.37, and 1.96% for the 420, 500, and 550 nm monochromatic light irradiation, respectively, which are much higher than those of the classic polymer (P7) without thiophene bridge and aza-substitution. This work indicats that the incorporation of thiophene bridge enhances visible absorption and aza-substitution optimized co-planarity and activate reactive sites, which should be an effective strategy to improve the photo-catalytic performance of linear conjugated polymers.

Effect of hydroxyl and carboxyl-functionalized carbon nanotubes on phase morphology, mechanical and dielectric properties of poly(lactide)/poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) composites.

A series of poly(lactide)/poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PLA/PBAT) composites containing different types of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) such as hydroxyl and carboxyl-functionalized CNTs were fabricated using the melt blending method. The multifunctional epoxy oligomer (ADR) was selected as a chain extender in order to enhance the compatibility between PBAT and PLA. It was revealed that the addition of ADR could induce CNTs-OH to locate at the PLA/PBAT interface. But the inhibition effect of CNTs-COOH on chain extension reaction in PLA/PBAT blend system led to a decrease in the interaction force between PLA and PBAT owing to the high efficiency of the reaction between CNTs-COOH and ADR. The ε' of PLA/PBAT/4CNTs-OH composite was greater than that of PLA/PBAT/4CNTs-COOH composite because of the strong interaction between fillers and polymer matrix in PLA/PBAT/4CNTs-OH composite. The PLA/PBAT/4CNTs-OH composite showed a high ε' (24.9) and a low tan δ (0.23), respectively. The adjacent CNTs-OH could act as assemble microcapacitors electrodes and the polymer acted as a dielectric to, which greatly increased the interfacial polarization. The PLA/PBAT/4CNTs-OH composite has excellent mechanical and dielectric properties.