Building Block Engineering toward Realizing High-Performance Electrochromic Materials and Glucose Biosensing Platform

The molecular engineering of conjugated systems has proven to be an effective method for understanding structure–property relationships toward the advancement of optoelectronic properties and biosensing characteristics. Herein, a series of three thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione (TPD)-based conjugated monomers, modified with electron-rich selenophene, 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT), or both building blocks (Se-TPD, EDOT-TPD, and EDOT-Se-TPD), were synthesized using Stille cross-coupling and electrochemically polymerized, and their electrochromic properties and applications in a glucose biosensing platform were explored. The influence of structural modification on electrochemical, electronic, optical, and biosensing properties was systematically investigated. The results showed that the cyclic voltammograms of EDOT-containing materials displayed a high charge capacity over a wide range of scan rates representing a quick charge propagation, making them appropriate materials for high-performance supercapacitor devices. UV-Vis studies revealed that EDOT-based materials presented wide-range absorptions, and thus low optical band gaps. These two EDOT-modified materials also exhibited superior optical contrasts and fast switching times, and further displayed multi-color properties in their neutral and fully oxidized states, enabling them to be promising materials for constructing advanced electrochromic devices. In the context of biosensing applications, a selenophene-containing polymer showed markedly lower performance, specifically in signal intensity and stability, which was attributed to the improper localization of biomolecules on the polymer surface. Overall, we demonstrated that relatively small changes in the structure had a significant impact on both optoelectronic and biosensing properties for TPD-based donor–acceptor polymers.