A memory-rich conjugated microporous polymer-based electrochromic framework through two-in-one metal catalyst free route

Conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) have gained rampant interest due to their remarkably well-suited features for organic electronics. However, little attention has been paid to the development of electrochromic CMPs (E-CMPs). To date, the synthesis of E-CMPs has only been reported through metal catalyst-based routes. Further, the inability of the reported routes to concurrently produce powder analogs (say, two-in-one approach) of the films has utterly restricted E-CMP's utilization in tools (such as adsorption analyzers and TEM) widely employed for the investigation of microporous nature. Due to this limitation, while successful synthesis of E-CMPs has been claimed in reports, the confirmation of their microporous nature still appears to be side-lined. Herein, we report a memory-rich conjugated microporous polymer-based electrochromic framework (denoted as E-CMP-Sb1) through a two-in-one metal-catalyst free route. The synthesized E-CMP-Sb1 film demonstrated good optical tunability in visible and NIR regions and registered a coloration efficiency of ∼147 cm²/C at 650 nm. The synthesized E-CMP-Sb1 was deployed in a gel-polymer electrolyte-based electrochromic device (ECD) to mark the first inching effort toward the still-unexplored field of E-CMP-based ECDs. Probing E-CMP's performance in real ECDs is expected to elucidate their commercial suitability in the years to come. This work provides a versatile platform for the existing synthesis and characterization issues of E-CMPs. Parallelly, the study also introduces a new material in the electrochromic fraternity.