Solar power is a renewable form of energy production that is constantly being refined and improved. The Perovskite solar cell is an emerging form of solar power generation, and the hole transport material they contain is a particular focal point in research. Spiro-MeOTAD, the best hole transport material at present, is under scrutiny due to the expense of its production, so possible alternatives are being proposed and tested. Prior research has indicated that hole transporting properties of materials can be affected by the presence of intramolecular hydrogen bonds. Hence, what that specific effect is provides the basis for this study. To save on time and resources, hole transport material precursor imines have been synthesised, as opposed to fully realised hole transport materials, as they give enough incite into the material to be able to draw conclusions. UV-Vis analysis in both solution and solid-state is utilised to determine valence-conduction band gaps for differentially substituted imines that either do or don’t contain an intramolecular hydrogen bond. Additionally, cyclic voltammetry is used to obtain reductive potentials for each imine, which are employed in calculations to determine the energy of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) for each. Comparison of the results for imines with the intramolecular hydrogen bonding with those without suggests that there is indeed a direct impact on, in particular, the HOMO energy of each imine, as well as a potential impact on the band gap of imines that are substituted with groups of electron withdrawing character. To conclude definitively on this effect, more hole transport material precursor imines with a wider range of substituents must be synthesised and tested.
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