Donor polarization engineering of conjugated microporous polymers to boost exciton dissociation for photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline.

The misuse and inevitable release of antibiotics can cause significant harm to both human health and the environment, and the use of polymeric semiconductors for photodegradation of antibiotics in aqueous environments is one of the most effective strategies to alleviate the current dilemma. Nevertheless, the inherently high exciton binding energy (E) and low photogenerated carrier transfer efficiency for most photocatalysts results in unsatisfactory photodegradation performance. Hence, this work proposes a donor polarization strategy to regulate the exciton dissociation of conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) by minimizing their E.

Enhancing Built-in Electric Field via Molecular Dipole Control in Conjugated Microporous Polymers for Boosting Charge Separation.

The built-in electric field (BEF) has been considered as the key kinetic factor for facilitating efficient photoinduced carrier separation and migration of polymeric photocatalysts. Enhancing the BEF of the polymers could enable a directional migration of the photogenerated carriers to accelerate photogenerated charge separation and thus boost photocatalytic performances. However, achieving this approach remains a formidable challenge, which has never been realized in conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs).