Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Synthesis Of Fullerene Derivatives For Diverse Applications: From Catalysis To Photovoltaics, Olivia Fernandez-Delgado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

AbstractFullerene functionalization has enabled the improvement in their solubility, optoelectronic, semiconductive, chemical and physical properties that allow their use in several fields such as photovoltaics, catalysis and for biological applications. Their good electron transporting properties have been widely studied in perovskite solar cell (PSC) devices and more recently, there have been more articles focused specifically on the molecular interactions of the fullerene functional groups with the perovskite layer which has allowed to obtain high power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of 25.5%. On the other hand, fullerenes are beginning to be studied as molecular catalysts for water splitting electrocatalytic processes, resulting in …

Synthesis Of New Fullerene Derivatives For Photovoltaic And Biological Applications, Edison Castro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Functionalized fullerenes exhibit improved solubility and different chemical and physical properties that allow applications in multiple fields such as photovoltaic and biological applications. Currently, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are the most rapidly developing type of solar cells with certified efficiencies rising from 3.8% in 2009 to 22.1% in 2016. The good electron transporting and solution processable properties of most fullerene derivatives make them the most popular electron transporting materials (ETMs) in inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs).

The work is reported in 11 chapters. We start with a fullerene overview followed by cleaver and elegant methodologies that allow the synThesis of …

The Isotopological Homodesmotic Reaction: A Further Refinement To The Quantification Of Aromaticity, Marco Olguin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Aromaticity imparts a significant energetic stabilization to various chemical systems as a result of cyclic pi-electron delocalization. One of the most widely used methods for the quantification of the Aromatic Stabilization Energy (ASE) of a molecule is the formulation of a Homodesmotic reaction. The following research employs a refined Homodesmotic approach based on previous work by Herndon and Mills which utilized Isotopological Homodesmotic Reactions (IHR) to determine the Aromatic Stabilization Energy (ASE) of a flourenyl cation. The advantage of employing an IHR for an ASE calculation is that the strain energy contribution from the sigma framework of reactant and product …