Norbornadiene-Based Photoswitches with Exceptional Combination of Solar Spectrum Match and Long-Term Energy Storage
Journal article, 2018
Norbornadiene-quadricyclane (NBD-QC) photoswitches are candidates for applications in solar thermal energy storage. Functionally, they rely on an intramolecular [2+2] cycloaddition reaction, which couples the S0 landscape on the NBD side to the S1 landscape on the QC side of the reaction and vice-versa. This commonly results in an unfavourable correlation between the first absorption maximum and the barrier for thermal back-conversion. This work demonstrates that this correlation can be counteracted by using steric repulsion to hamper the rotational motion of the side groups along the back-conversion path. It is shown that this modification reduces the correlation between the effective back-conversion barrier and the first absorption maximum and also increases the back-conversion entropy. The resulting molecules exhibit exceptionally long half-lives for their metastable forms without significantly affecting other properties, most notably solar spectrum match and storage density.
solar energy
quadricyclane
norbornadienes
energy storage
molecular photoswitches
Author
Martyn Jevric
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Anne Petersen
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Mads Manso
University of Copenhagen
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Sandeep Kumar Singh
Chalmers, Physics, Materials and Surface Theory
Zhihang Wang
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Ambra Dreos
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Christopher Sumby
University of Adelaide
M. B. Nielsen
University of Copenhagen
Karl Börjesson
University of Gothenburg
Paul Erhart
Chalmers, Physics, Materials and Surface Theory
Kasper Moth-Poulsen
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Chemistry - A European Journal
0947-6539 (ISSN) 1521-3765 (eISSN)
Vol. 24 49 12767-12772Subject Categories
Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics
Other Physics Topics
Theoretical Chemistry
DOI
10.1002/chem.201802932