Synthesis and Electrochemical Properties of Donor–Acceptor-Conjugated Polymers Based on Carbazole-EDOT Derivatives with Different Electron-Withdrawing Groups

A series of donor (D)–acceptor (A)-conjugated monomers (ECzE-NB and ECzE-AQ) were designed and synthesized by EDOT-carbazole-EDOT (ECzE) acting as a donor (D) and anthraquinone (AQ) and nitrobenzene (NB) acting as acceptors (A) in this study. The corresponding polymer films (PECzE, PECzE-NB, and PECzE-AQ) were obtained by electrochemical polymerization, and then the effects of different acceptors on the structure and electrochemical performance of the polymers were studied. Through NMR, mass spectrometry (MS), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), it was proved that the monomers were successfully synthesized. The results of the electrochemical performance test illustrated that the electrochemical behavior of PECzE was a typical nondiffusion-controlled process. When the current density was 0.1 mA/cm2, the specific capacity of PECzE was 8.41 mF/cm2 with a rather good rate performance. However, the electrochemical behaviors of PECzE-NB and PECzE-AQ were different from that of PECzE owing to the ability of hole injection and spatial structures of the monomers changed by introducing electron-withdrawing groups.