Synthesis, characterization of unsaturated nitrile compounds and their potential applications

Nowadays, studies has been directed towards alternative energy, among all other alternative energy sources, solar energy has became much interested because of it's existent potential. In order to use this energy effectively, organic and inorganic solar cells have been designed. Inorganic cells are used more than organic cells because of their high efficency. However, due to the high cost and difficulyt in working with inorganic solar cells interest to the organic solar cells has been increased. The easy production and low cost are important advantages of organic solar cells compared to inorganic ones. Besides, easily coating on wide surfaces and increasing in flexibility depending on the used material increases their application field. Also by the developments in organic chemistry, giving superior features to the synthesized organic compounds with various starting materials leads to the rapid development of this technology. Nowadays frequently studied organic solar cells are the donor and acceptor bilayer structures disposed between two electrodes. Organic molecules containing nitrile group used in organic solar cells because of their strong acceptor characteristics. In this study, synthesis of α,β-unsaturated nitrile compounds was performed. All synthesized compounds were characterized using different spectroscopic methods (UV-Vis, FTIR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, LC-MS). These compounds were designed to use in solar cells. By this aim, fotovoltaic investigations for solar cell applications were done in two part as theoretical and experimental. In theoretical study, optimized molecular structures were determined and HOMO-LUMO energy levels were calculated using DFT/B3LYP method with Gaussian 09 W, theoretically. In experimental part, simple solar cells were made, current-voltage graphics of all compounds were drawn and theoretical and experimental data were compared to determine photovoltaic potential of all compounds.