I Have a Research Support System

After lunch, Xu Qiu unexpectedly received a call from Teacher Wei.

"There is a review article in the PDI series, which is a bit similar to your previous idea. I sent it to your email address." Teacher Wei said concisely and with a serious tone.

"3-dimensional PDI molecules?" Xu Qiu was startled, and hurriedly asked.

"Yes, but their formulations are different. Take a closer look."

"okay."

After hanging up the phone, Han Jiaying asked concerned: "Senior brother, what's the matter?"

"A PDI review, Mr. Wei said that their experimental ideas are very similar to ours." Xu Qiu replied, then opened the email and checked the review files.

"Well... so, let me take a look too." The junior girl moved the chair beside him, and Xu Qiu moved it inside to make room.

The journal they select is JACS, the title is "A star-shaped PDI electron acceptor for high-efficiency organic solar cells", the material is named TPA-3PDI, the molecular structure is the middle triphenylamine, and a PDI molecule is connected to each benzene ring next to it .

Xu Qiu sighed, the other party's work was indeed very similar to his thinking.

He was originally inspired by fullerene derivatives. Fullerene is a spherical molecule that can achieve good charge transport on a three-dimensional space scale, while PDI molecules are planar and can only transport on a two-dimensional plane. charge.

Therefore, he conceived a molecule with a conjugated core in the middle and several PDI molecules connected outside to simulate the structure of fullerene, which is the concept of 3D-PDI.

Unexpectedly, his experiment has just started, and other people's articles have already been published.

Continue to scroll down and come to the column of photoelectric performance - the efficiency is only 4%.

"It's so low, can it be called high efficiency?" Han Jiaying asked.

In fact, this was also Xu Qiu's first reaction, but he understood after thinking about it, and explained:

"8% and 9% in fullerene are not uncommon, and he even achieved 11%, but for non-fullerene fields, it is rare to reach more than 6%.

When comparing, it is usually necessary to compare horizontally. Moreover, the main selling point of this work is the concept of three-dimensional or star shape. Although the efficiency of 4% is not high, it at least proves that the device can operate normally. This concept is feasible. of. "

Han Jiaying nodded thoughtfully.

Looking through the pictures in the article again, Xu Qiu made a preliminary judgment that this job can still be sent to JACS.

So the question is, how to deal with this manuscript?

‘Is it normal to review the manuscript, or delay the manuscript, or give a rejection opinion directly, or even give a rejection opinion after a delay? ’ He was confused.

At that moment, he had already thought up the template for the rejection letter: "The work is not good, the efficiency is too low, BALABALA... I suggest switching to ACSAMI."

In short, faults can always be picked out.

After struggling for a while, Xu Qiu shook his head, put aside distracting thoughts, and decided to review the manuscript normally.

Others have the same scientific research ideas as him, and published their work first. Although it is a pity, there is no need to abandon your principles for it.

As a scientific researcher, it is better to be pure and frank.

Besides, the others were only ahead for a while, and it wasn't like he didn't have the chance to overtake on the curve.

This concept was proposed by them, which can only show that they have taken a step ahead, but in the end they still have to see the truth in terms of device performance.

After confirming this point, Xu Qiu calmed down and carefully reviewed the manuscript.

"Brother, what does this article say?"

"Let's make a big change. It's JACS after all, so the requirements are naturally higher." Xu Qiu smiled and said, "If he votes for ACSAMI, I'll just let him pass."

In the end, he asked the other party to add some experiments including TRPL, and asked a few questions about the details of the experiments, and then sent the review comments directly to Mr. Wei.

As for whether Mr. Wei will have some other ideas, such as delaying the manuscript, or changing the opinion to reject the manuscript, that is beyond his control.

In this review, Xu Qiu gained a lot:

First of all, he is familiar with the entire synthesis reaction path of 3D-PDI series molecules, which can be used as a reference for him, and perhaps he can avoid some detours.

Secondly, there is the problem of product yield. The last step of the reaction, that is, to obtain the final target product, 3D-PDI molecule, has a yield of only 40%. This may also be a problem he has to face.

Again, they used two kinds of donor materials, one is conventional PCE10 with an efficiency of 3%, the other is P3TEA with an efficiency of 4%, and the efficiency of PCE10 after blending these two donor materials with PCBM is higher than P3TEA.

This shows that in terms of donor selection, the requirements of non-fullerene acceptors and traditional fullerene derivatives are not uniform.

Based on this, he thought of a plan in his mind, but its feasibility has yet to be investigated.

Finally, the unit of this work is a research institute in China, which is also a large group, and there are more than ten authors' names alone.

In this way, the progress of his experiment must be accelerated.

Like a large group, in the case of assembly line work, if an article is published, there will probably be other work in progress simultaneously.

In particular, this is a new subdivision field that has just been opened up.

Hope, don't crash it.

...

After processing the manuscript, continue the experiment.

When they bought a liquid chromatograph before, the manufacturer sent two boxes of silica gel columns.

One is a disposable column that has been filled with silica gel, and the other is a reusable silica gel column.

The disposable column cannot be disassembled and needs to be used with an additional sample column, that is, the mixed sample is evenly placed in a small silica gel column, and then connected to the disposable silica gel column.

However, the reusable silica gel column needs to be filled with silica gel manually, and the sample can be directly loaded on the upper end of the silica gel column, usually no additional sample column is required.

Obviously, one-time is more convenient, after all, only a small sample column needs to be installed manually.

Xu Qiu resolutely chose a disposable one. He converted it based on 5 grams of sample, and selected a column that was not too big or too small according to the suitable sample quality marked on the blank silica gel column.

After installing the sample column, he started to set up the device, connecting the sample column and blank silica gel column, and then connecting it to the liquid chromatograph.

Because he learned that the 1:1 volume ratio of petroleum ether:dichloromethane solvent can effectively separate the two products when ordering the plate, so he inserted the A and B tubes of the liquid chromatograph into petroleum ether and methylene chloride respectively. 4 L solvent pails of dichloromethane.

When ready, open the software, set A:B to 100:0, flow rate 30 ml per minute, waste liquid mode, and start.

The solvent is continuously pumped out under the action of the pump.

This time, unlike the last time, there was no column running empty, because of the existence of the silica gel column, the pressure of the solvent is very high.

Therefore, the sound of "duang" and "duang" around has also become a lot louder, and it is obvious that several thin tubes are swinging rhythmically.

The transparent solvent flows down from the sample column to the blank silica gel column, slowly soaking the entire column.