Syntheses of Tridentate and Tetradentate Oxo-Ligands Used in Octahedral Titanium (IV) Complexes

ABSTRACT

One of the inhibiting factors of wide spread use of traditional solar cells is the cost of crystalline silicon production on a large scale. TiO₂ based dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have the potential of dramatically increasing the economic viability of solar cells due to the relatively inexpensive production of TiO₂. This work focuses on the coordination chemistry used to bind organic functionalities to the TiO₂ semiconductor surface. There are numerous commercially available 2 coordinate oxo-ligands but few 3 or 4 coordinate oxo-ligands. Herein we report the syntheses of di(2-hydroxybenzyl) ether (1) and 1,3-(2-hydroxybenzyloxy) propane (2). In an octahedral titanium centered complex the tridentate [O,O,O] ligand (1) in combination with a chelating ligand will ensure a single site remains open. While the tetradentate [O,O,O,O] ligand (2) forces the remaining open sites to have a cis stereochemistry. These octahedral titanium complexes are useful in modeling semiconductor interface TiO₂ based solar cells.