posted on 2024-02-06, 21:13authored byTyler
W. Hiltermann, Subhajit Sarkar, Venkataraman Thangadurai, Todd C. Sutherland
This study introduces a sustainable
approach to designing organic
cathode materials (OCMs) for lithium-ion batteries as a potential
replacement for traditional metal-based electrodes. Utilizing green
synthetic methodologies, we synthesized and characterized five distinct
quinone derivatives and investigated their electrochemical attributes
within Li-ion battery architectures. Notably, the observed specific
capacities were lower than the theoretical predictions, suggesting
limitations in achieving efficient redox reactions in a coin-cell
configuration. Among the quinone derivatives studied, one variant
derived from natural vanillin showed superior cycle stability, maintaining
58% capacity retention over 95 charge–discharge cycles, and
achieving a Coulombic efficiency of 90%. Importantly, we discovered
that the commonly used Super-P conductive carbon did not yield any
measurable battery performance; instead, these quinones necessitated
the incorporation of graphene nanoplatelets as the conductive matrix.
Through a facile one-step synthesis in ethanol or water, we have demonstrated
a viable synthetic route for producing OCMs, albeit with moderate
performances, which have attempted to address common concerns of high
solubility and poor redox reactivity of previous OCMs, thereby offering
a sustainable pathway for the development of organic-based energy
storage devices.