A Novel Anthraquinone‐Containing Poly(Triphenylamine) Derivative: Preparation and Electrochemical Performance as Cathode for Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Iodine-Based Chemical Polymerization Enables the Development of Neat Amorphous Porous Organic Polymers

Amorphous porous organic polymers (POPs), with high porosity and high chemical and thermal stability, have been investigated for various applications. Most amorphous POPs are synthesized by electropolymerization or chemical polymerization. However, nonhomogeneous film formation in electropolymerization and residual metal-derived impurities in chemical polymerization are challenges. This study developed a novel chemical polymerization method for amorphous POPs using iodine as an oxidant. Specifically, we synthesized a representative amorphous POP, polytriphenylamine (pTPA). The pTPA was obtained as a powder through solution polymerization and as a thin film via vapor-assisted polymerization. Postreaction, ethanol was used to remove iodine completely. Notably, even though pTPA was constructed from rigid structures, the nitrogen-induced gate-opening phenomenon was exhibited for the first time as amorphous POPs. These results demonstrate that impurity-free amorphous POPs exhibit inherent flexibility against their rigid chemical structure. The novel iodine-based chemical polymerization enables us to synthesize neat amorphous POPs and to explore their pure functions.

Triphenylamine-Based Conjugated Microporous Polymers as the Next Generation Organic Cathode Materials

This paper presents a study on a novel porous polymer based on triphenylamine (LPCMP) as an excellent cathode material for lithium-ion batteries. Through structural design and a scalable post-synthesis approach, improvements in intrinsic conductivity, practical capacity, and redox potential in an organic cathode material is reported. The designed cathode achieves a notable capacity of 146 mAh g⁻¹ with an average potential of 3.6 V, using 70% active material content in the electrode. Additionally, through appropriate structural design, the capacity can increase to 160 mAh g-1. Even at a high current density of 20 A g⁻¹ (360C), the cathode maintains a capacity of 74 mAh g⁻¹, enabling full charge within 10 s. A high specific energy density of 569 Wh kg⁻¹ (at 0.1 A g⁻¹) is combined with a very high power density of 94.5 kW kg⁻¹ (at 20 A g⁻¹ corresponding to a specific energy density of 263 Wh kg⁻¹) surpassing the power density of graphene-based supercapacitors. It exhibits highly stable cyclic performance across various current densities, retaining almost 95% of its initial capacity after 1000 cycles at 5.5C. This work presents a significant breakthrough in developing high-capacity, high-potential organic materials for sustainable, high-energy, and high-power lithium-ion batteries.

A donor-acceptor (D-A) conjugated polymer for fast storage of anions

Organic electrode materials have attracted a lot interest in batteries in recent years. However, most of them still suffer from low performance such as low electrode potential, slow reaction kinetics, and short cycle life. In this work, we report a strategy of fabricating donor-acceptor (D-A) conjugated polymers for facilitating the charge transfer and therefore accelerating the reaction kinetics by using the copolymer (p-TTPZ) of dihydrophenazine (PZ) and thianthrene (TT) as a proof-of-concept. The D-A conjugated polymer as p-type cathode could store anions and exhibited high discharge voltages (two plateaus at 3.82 V, 3.16 V respectively), a reversible capacity of 152 mAh g-1 at 0.1 A g-1 , excellent rate performance with a high capacity of 124.2 mAh g-1 at 10 A g-1 (≈50 C) and remarkable cyclability. The performance, especially the rate capability was much higher than that of its counterpart homopolymers without D-A structure. As a result, the p-TTPZ//graphite full cells showed a high output voltage (3.26 V), a discharge specific capacity of 139.1 mAh g-1 at 0.05 A g-1 and excellent rate performance. This work provides a novel strategy for developing high performance organic electrode materials through molecular design and will pave a way towards high energy density organic batteries.

Triphenylamine-anthraquinone based donor-acceptor conjugated microporous polymers for photocatalytic hydroxylation of phenylboronic acids

Triphenylamine-based donor-acceptor conjugated microporous polymers, namely PTPA-AQ and PTPA-AM, were synthesized for the first time via Suzuki-Miyaura coupling of tris(4-(4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3,2-dioxaborolan-2-yl)phenyl)-amine as a donor with 2,6-dibromoanthracene-9,10-dione and 2,2'-(2,6-dibromoanthracene-9,10-diylidene)dimalononitrile acceptors for efficient visible-light driven oxidative hydroxylation of various phenylboronic acids. The dimalononitrile derivative having greater acceptor ability showed tunable photophysical properties of PTPA-AM (lower band gap of 1.47 eV and better exciton separation efficiency) as well as porosity (lower Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of 43 m² g^-1). PTPA-AQ having higher BET surface area (400 m² g^-1), suitable HOMO-LUMO positions and an optimal band gap (1.94 eV) showed better photocatalytic activity for the hydroxylation with yields up to 96%.