Development of regio-regular poly(3-hexylthiophene) by direct arylation using Fagnou's conditions.

Semiconducting polymers are widely studied due to their applications in photovoltaic devices, the predominant conjugated polymer used in organic solar cells (OSCs) is semicrystalline poly(3-hexylthiophene) P3HT, which can be produced by easy, low-cost and environmentally friendly methods such as direct arylation polymerization (DArP) (N.S. Gobalasingham et al. 2018). Due to its solution processing, deposition on different types of substrates, even flexible, with technologies such as spin coating and roll to roll, it is a feasible option for large-scale production. In this work we present the synthesis, physicochemical characterization of a regio- regular P3HT by the direct arylation method using Fagnou conditions and its evaluation on the active layer of OSCs with bulk heterojunction architecture.