Application of quinonic cathode compounds for quasi-solid lithium batteries

Solid-state cells are one of the strongest candidate designs for utilisation of renewable high-capacity organic cathode materials. Following our previous work on tetracyanoquinodimethane, further high-capacity quinonic compounds, namely dichlorodicyanobenzoquinone, tetrahydroxybenzoquinone and dihydroxybenzoquinone were investigated. Cell cycling experiments indicated that these compounds undergo reversible redox reaction with significantly less cyclic capacity decay. 3.4 V of cell voltage was attainable from DDQ cells and capacities exceeding 250 mAh g(-1) were obtained from THBQ and DHBQ. These results reassure that by adopting an appropriate battery design, cycleability of organic cathodes can be drastically improved and they can be exploited as low-cost environmentally friendly high energy-density cathode materials. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.