Pyrene-Tethered Telluroviologen Both as Cathode and Anode for All Organic Symmetrical Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract

Organic materials offer many advantages as electrodes for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), including environmental friendliness, flexibility in design, and lightweight. Herein, we demonstrate the successful design and fabrication of pyrene-tethered telluroviologen (Py₂TeV)/single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) composite (denoted as Py₂TeV/SWCNTs), in which the Py₂TeV is stably adsorbed onto SWCNTs via π–π interactions. The conjunction of Py₂TeV/SWCNTs effectively suppresses the solubility and improves the stability of the organic materials, thus endowing Py₂TeV/SWCNTs with excellent electronic properties, as compared to the pyrene-tethered parent viologen Py₂V/SWCNTs mixture. When examined as electrode materials for LIBs, the Py₂TeV/SWCNTs display superior electrochemical performance, displaying an initial capacity of 68.5 mAh g^–1 and a long-life cycling performance up to 23 mAh g^–1 after 500 cycles. Due to the characteristic electrochemical properties of Py₂TeV/SWCNTs, they can be used as both cathode and anode electrodes to fabricate all-organic symmetrical LIBs, which show a reversible capacity (27.6 mAh g^–1) after 100 cycles, indicating their potential for the exploration of organic LIBs in the future.