Site Selectivity of Peptoids as Azobenzene Scaffold for Molecular Solar Thermal Energy Storage
Journal article, 2023
Storing solar energy is a key challenge in modern science. MOlecular Solar Thermal (MOST) systems, in particular those based on azobenzene switches, have received great interest in the last decades. The energy storage properties of azobenzene (t1/2<4 days; ΔH~270 kJ/kg) must be improved for future applications. Herein, we introduce peptoids as programmable supramolecular scaffolds to improve the energy storage properties of azobenzene-based MOST systems. We demonstrate with 3-unit peptoids bearing a single azobenzene chromophore that dynamics of the MOST systems can be tuned depending on the anchoring position of the photochromic unit on the macromolecular backbone. We measured a remarkable increase of the half-life of the metastable form up to 14 days at 20 °C for a specific anchoring site, significantly higher than the isolated azobenzene moiety, thus opening new perspectives for MOST development. We also highlight that liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry does not only enable to monitor the different stereoisomers during the photoisomerization process as traditionally done, but also allows to determine the thermal back-isomerization kinetics.
peptoid
MOST
azobenzene
solar energy storage
photoswitch
Author
Benjamin Tassignon
Universite de Mons
Zhihang Wang
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
University of Cambridge
Agostino Galanti
ISIS - Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute
Julien De Winter
Universite de Mons
Paolo Samorì
ISIS - Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute
J. Cornil
Universite de Mons
Kasper Moth-Poulsen
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Polytechnic University of Catalonia
Institute of Material Science of Barcelona (ICMAB)
Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies
Pascal Gerbaux
Universite de Mons
Chemistry - A European Journal
0947-6539 (ISSN) 1521-3765 (eISSN)
Vol. 29 70 e202303168Subject Categories
Energy Engineering
DOI
10.1002/chem.202303168
PubMed
37796081