An Ultrastable Porous Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane/Tetraphenylthiophene Hybrid as a High-Performance Electrode for Supercapacitors
Mohsin Ejaz, Mohamed Gamal Mohamed, Santosh U. Sharma, Jyh‐Tsung Lee, Chih‐Feng Huang, Tao Chen, Shiao‐Wei Kuo
Abstract
In this study, we synthesized three hybrid microporous polymers through Heck couplings of octavinylsilsesquioxane (OVS) with 2,5-bis(4-bromophenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (OXD-Br2), tetrabromothiophene (Th-Br4), and 2,5-bis(4-bromophenyl)-3,4-diphenylthiophene (TPTh-Br2), obtaining the porous organic–inorganic polymers (POIPs) POSS-OXD, POSS-Th, and POSS-TPTh, respectively. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and solid state 13C and 29Si NMR spectroscopy confirmed their chemical structures. Thermogravimetric analysis revealed that, among these three systems, the POSS-Th POIP possessed the highest thermal stability (T5: 586 °C; T10: 785 °C; char yield: 90 wt%), presumably because of a strongly crosslinked network formed between its OVS and Th moieties. Furthermore, the specific capacity of the POSS-TPTh POIP (354 F g−1) at 0.5 A g−1 was higher than those of the POSS-Th (213 F g−1) and POSS-OXD (119 F g−1) POIPs. We attribute the superior electrochemical properties of the POSS-TPTh POIP to its high surface area and the presence of electron-rich phenyl groups within its structure.