Perylene Polyimide-Polyether Anodes for Aqueous All-Organic Polymer Batteries

Aqueous batteries are a safe, sustainable, and a low cost alternative to store energy. Thus, there is an ongoing search for new battery electrode materials with redox potentials in the voltage range corresponding to the electrochemical stability window of water. Particularly, organic materials are attracting considerable attention due to their environmental friendliness and sustainability. While significant progress has been achieved in developing organic cathode materials, developing anode materials with good electrochemical performance remains a challenge. Here we show that perylene polyimides with oligoether groups are great anode candidates for high power aqueous polymer batteries. Perylene-based polyimide presents a redox reaction at -0.55 V vs Ag/AgCl and stable cycle life at high current density (600C) for 2000 cycles. An all-organic cell consisting of perylene polyimide-polyether as anode (negative electrode) and PEDOT-lignin biopolymer composite as cathode (positive electrode) has an output voltage of 1.0 V. The full-cell delivers 40 mAh g(-1) discharge capacity at 100C with 85% capacity retention and above 93% Coulombic efficiency for 800 cycles.