Organic Electrode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries

Organic materials hold promise as less-scarce materials for electrodes in a range of emerging battery technologies. Despite this, they have significant hurdles to overcome in terms of capacity, stability, and conductivity. Here, I will discuss our efforts in the rational design of organic materials as electrodes, both anodes and cathodes, for Li-ion batteries. First, I will discuss functional groups to maximize theoretical capacitance. Second, I with discuss the arrangement of these functional groups as macromolecules that render them insoluble, which is a requirement for any electrode in both the charged and discharged state. And in both, synthetic strategies for developing the functional group chemistry and macromolecules will be discussed. We consider both linear and 2D/3D type macromolecular designs for this purpose. Finally, I will share some insight into designs that have afforded very high capacity as anodes, where the lithium intercalation exceeds the expected 1 Li per 6 carbon units. Overall, this presentation will describe chemical structures and electrochemical properties and then aim to rationalize performance at the molecular level.