Design Strategies toward Enhancing the Performance of Organic Electrode Materials in Metal-Ion Batteries

TLDR

Organic electrode materials promise high capacity, design flexibility, and environmental friendliness, yet their performance is limited by solubility, conductivity, volume change, and density. This review aims to outline the working principles of various organic electrode types and to examine strategies for improving voltage, capacity, cycling, and rate performance in metal‑ion batteries. The authors discuss conductive polymers, organosulfur compounds, organic radicals, carbonyl compounds, and emerging materials, and analyze design strategies for enhancing electrochemical performance. The review offers insights into developing high‑performance organic electrode materials for next‑generation rechargeable metal‑ion batteries.

Abstract

Organic electrode materials have shown great potential for metal-ion batteries because of their high theoretical capacity, flexible structure designability, and environmental friendliness. However, their electrochemical performance still needs to be further enhanced, which mainly depends on the molecular structures, electrode fabrication, electrolyte, and separators. In this review, we present the working principles and fundamental properties of different types of organic electrode materials, including conductive polymers, organosulfur compounds, organic radicals, carbonyl compounds, and other emerging materials. We then focus on the strategies toward enhancing the electrochemical performance (output voltage, capacity, cycling stability, and rate performance) of organic electrode materials in various metal-ion batteries. The key challenges of organic electrode materials for metal-ion batteries mainly contain the high solubility in electrolyte, low intrinsic electronic conductivity, large volume change, and low tap density. This review provides insights into the development of organic electrode materials with high performance for next-generation rechargeable metal-ion batteries.