Graphenal Polymers for Energy Storage
Linjie Zhi*, Long Hao
National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, China
Zhongguancun Beiyitiao No. 11, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China
Zhilj@nanoctr.cn
Abstract
Nowadays, rapidly developing global economy has triggered serious environmental problems and
excessive consumption of fossil fuels. Consequently, exploiting sustainable clean energy as well as
efficient energy conversion and storage technologies is urgently required. Lithium ion batteries and
supercapacitors are two important types of energy storage devices, which have high energy density and
high power density respectively. Normally, the performance of both Lithium ion batteries and
supercapacitors are mainly decided by their electrode materials. Carbon materials especially graphenerelated materials have been the star materials in the past few years for their abundant sources, flexible
structures, and controllable functionalities. [1] However, when we zoom in the structures of these
materials, it’s easy to recognize that these so-called “graphene-related” materials in energy storage
applications have totally different structure characters from “graphene” itself. They contain both
graphene units and chemical functions, and are generally formed by the aromatic C-C coupling or the
chemical tailoring of graphene structures. These structures are the chemical combination of grapheme
units and functional polymeric fragments, which we define them as “graphenal polymers” These
graphenal polymers have great advantages in energy storage devices. For example, in lithium ion
batteries and supercapacitors, the conductivity is very important to their rate capacities, which can be
solved by the “graphenal” part; while the active materials (e.g. SnO2, Sn, SnS, Si, etc in lithium ion
batteries) need to be well attached with the conductive networks of the electrode or the electrochemical
active surface (in supercapacitors), which can be solved by the “polymer” part. Based on these
graphenal polymers, we have investigated experimentally a serious of materials for enhancing their
properties in lithium ion batteries [2] and supercapacitors.[3] In general, two strageties can be selected to
fabricate graphenal polymers. One is the “top-down” method using graphite or graphene as starting
materials, while the other is the “bottom-up” method starting from small molecules via such as CVD
procedure.[4] Recently, we also recognized we could build graphenal polymers step by step, from small
molecules to 2D porous organic networks (PONs), then to graphenal polymers, with which we can
controllably maintain the functional groups and enhance the conductivity at the same time to enhance
their electrochemical performances.[5] In short, graphenal polymer is one class of new materials highly
attractive for energy conversion and energy storage applications.
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