Toward a high-performance all-plastic full battery with a single organic polymer as both cathode and anode

• Main Authors: Xie, Jian, Wang, Zilong, Xu, Jason Zhichuan, Zhang, Qichun
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Materials; All-plastic; Heterocyclic Dithioether
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/139322
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The design and fabrication of high-performance all-plastic batteries is essentially important to achieve future flexible electronics. A major challenge in this field is the lack of stable and reliable soft organic electrodes with satisfactory performance. Here, a novel all-plastic-electrode based Li-ion battery with a single flexible bi-functional ladderized heterocyclic poly(quinone), (C6O2S2)n, as both cathode and anode is demonstrated. Benefiting from its unique ladder-like quinone and dithioether structure, the as-prepared polymer cathode shows a high energy density of 624 Wh kg−1 (vs lithium anode) and a stable battery life of 1000 cycles. Moreover, the as-fabricated symmetric full-battery delivers a large capacity of 249 mAh g−1 (at 20 mA g−1), a good capacity retention of 119 mAh g−1 after 250 cycles (at 1.0 A g−1) and a noteworthy energy density up to 276 Wh kg−1. The superior performance of poly(2,3-dithiino-1,4-benzoquinone)-based electrode rivals most of the state-of-the-art demonstrations on organic-based metal-ion shuttling batteries. The study provides an effective strategy to develop stable bi-functional electrode materials toward the next-generation of high performance all-plastic batteries.