Electrode Engineering of Redox-Active Conjugated Microporous Polymers for Ultra-High Areal Capacity Organic Batteries

Redox-active organic compounds have become promising electrode materials for the development of more sustainable, economical, and safer batteries. However, their high electrochemical performance is inherently associated with the use of low mass-loading electrodes with high carbon content, which collectively hinders their applicability in real batteries. This work presents an innovative approach for developing high-performance and practical organic electrodes through the synthesis of anthraquinone-based conjugated microporous polymers in the presence of carbon nanostructures and further processing into self-supported buckypaper electrodes. This effective method enables high-mass-loading hybrid electrodes (up to 60 mg cm(-2)) with low carbon content (20 wt %), which attained high gravimetric capacity (83.7 mAh g(electrode)(-1)), high areal capacity (6.3 mAh cm(-2)), good rate capability (0.8 mAh cm(-2) at 10C), and remarkable cycle stability (>80% capacity retention over 1000 cycles). These are the highest values reported for an organic electrode, constituting a great leap forward in the development of practical organic batteries.