Anthraquinone-Quinizarin Copolymer as a Promising Electrode Material for High-Performance Lithium and Potassium Batteries

• Published in: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 28; no. 14; p. 5351
• Main Authors: Shchurik, Elena V, Kraevaya, Olga A, Vasil'ev, Sergey G, Zhidkov, Ivan S, Kurmaev, Ernst Z, Shestakov, Alexander F, Troshin, Pavel A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 12-07-2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Batteries; Electrodes; Electrolytes; Lithium; lithium ion battery; organic cathode; Polymerization; Polymers; Potassium; potassium ion battery; Germany; Russia; organic cathode; potassium ion battery; lithium ion battery
• ISSN: 1420-3049; 1420-3049
• DOI: 10.3390/molecules28145351

The growing demand for cheap, safe, recyclable, and environmentally friendly batteries highlights the importance of the development of organic electrode materials. Here, we present a novel redox-active polymer comprising a polyaniline-type conjugated backbone and quinizarin and anthraquinone units. The synthesized polymer was explored as a cathode material for batteries, and it delivered promising performance characteristics in both lithium and potassium cells. Excellent lithiation efficiency enabled high discharge capacity values of >400 mA g
in combination with good stability upon charge-discharge cycling. Similarly, the potassium cells with the polymer-based cathodes demonstrated a high discharge capacity of >200 mAh g
at 50 mA g
and impressive stability: no capacity deterioration was observed for over 3000 cycles at 11 A g
, which was among the best results reported for K ion battery cathodes to date. The synthetic availability and low projected cost of the designed material paves a way to its practical implementation in scalable and inexpensive organic batteries, which are emerging as a sustainable energy storage technology.