Facile access to C-N bonds via unexpected side reactions of Knoevenagel condensation and their application in high-efficiency organic solar cells

The construction of C-N bonds is of great importance in the fields of biology,medicine,chemistry and materials science.Here,the replacement of organic base from pyridine to piperidine in the Knoevenagel condensation process unexpectedly yields a series of novel organic molecules containing C-N bonds.Interestingly,the synthesis method does not require any external transition-metals catalysis,and photo-/electro-catalysis.Additionally,when the new compound 1b is added as a third component to a well-known binary system of PM6:Y6,the efficiency of the organic solar cell is significantly improved,resulting in an outstanding efficiency of 18.0%,which is one of the highest values reported to date for PM6:Y6-based ternary organic solar cells.