Towards the Sustainable Synthesis of Organic Semiconductors

The synthesis and processing of organic semiconductors for electronic applications are traditionally associated with significant environmental and safety concerns, arising from the extensive use of toxic reagents, hazardous and volatile organic solvents, and inefficient multistep routes. These practices pose critical challenges to the scalability and sustainability of organic semiconductor technologies. This contribution presents safer and potentially scalable synthetic strategies for representative conjugated materials widely employed as benchmark active layers in organic electronic devices. The proposed methodologies emphasize the replacement of hazardous reagents and solvents with environmentally benign alternatives, significantly reducing the environmental footprint of the processes. In particular, water-based micellar systems enable efficient Suzuki-Miyaura-type polymerizations in aqueous media, minimizing reliance on organic solvents while maintaining material performance. The developed approaches demonstrate substantial improvements in key green chemistry metrics, including enhanced atom economy and reduced E-factors. Additionally, these methods simplify purification steps and reduce overall waste generation. Overall, these results demonstrate that high-performance semiconducting materials can be accessed through environmentally responsible synthetic strategies, providing viable pathways for scalable production and compatibility with bio-derived feedstocks, in alignment with the principles of green chemistry.