Unveiling Organic Electrode Materials in Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries: From Structural Design to Electrochemical Performance.

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) are one of the most compelling alternatives of lithium-ion batteries due to their inherent safety and economics viability. In response to the growing demand for green and sustainable energy storage solutions, organic electrodes with the scalability from inexpensive starting materials and potential for biodegradation after use have become a prominent choice for AZIBs. Despite gratifying progresses of organic molecules with electrochemical performance in AZIBs, the research is still in infancy and hampered by certain issues due to the underlying complex electrochemistry.

Electropolymerization of Donor-Acceptor Conjugated Polymer for Efficient Dual-Ion Storage.

Rationally designed organic redox-active materials have attracted numerous interests due to their excellent electrochemical performance and reasonable sustainability. However, they often suffer from poor cycling stability, intrinsic low operating potential, and poor rate performance. Herein, a novel Donor-Acceptor (D-A) bipolar polymer with n-type pyrene-4,5,9,10-tetraone unit storing Li cations and p-type carbazole unit which attracts anions and provides polymerization sites is employed as a cathode for lithium-ion batteries through in situ electropolymerization.

Design and Synthesis of Viologen-based Copolymers for High Performance Li-Dual-Ion Batteries.

Dual-ion batteries based on organic electrodes show great potential to break through the bottlenecks existed in conventional LIBs due to their high specific capacity, lifted working voltage, and environmental benignity. Herein, two innovative viologen-based bipolar copolymers poly(viologen-pyrene-4,5,9,10-tetrone dichloride) (PVPTOCl ) and poly(viologen-anthraquinone dichloride) (PVAQCl ) were synthesized and applied as high performance cathodes for lithium-dual-ion battery. Bearing the dual-ion storage capability of viologen and carbonyls, as well as the conjugated structure of pyrene-4,5,9,10-tetrone, the synthesized copolymers show remarkable electrochemical performances for LIBs.