Organic Cathode Materials for Rechargeable Batteries

High-Energy and High-Power-Density Potassium Ion Batteries Using Dihydrophenazine-Based Polymer as Active Cathode Material

Polymeric aromatic amines were shown to be very promising cathodes for lithium-ion batteries. Surprisingly, these materials are scarcely used for designing post-lithium batteries. In this Letter, we investigate the application of the high-voltage poly(N-phenyl-5,10-dihydrophenazine) (p-DPPZ) cathodes for K-ion batteries. The designed batteries demonstrate an impressive specific capacity of 162 mAh g^-1 at the current density of 200 mA g^-1, operate efficiently at high current densities of 2-10 A g^-1, enabling charge and discharge within ∼1-4 min, and deliver the specific capacity of 125-145 mAh g^-1 with a retention of 96 and 79% after 100 and 1000 charge-discharge cycles, respectively. Finally, these K-ion batteries with polymeric p-DPPZ cathodes showed rather outstanding specific power of >3 × 10⁴ W kg^-1, thus paving a way to the design of ultrafast and durable high-capacity metal-ion batteries matching the increasing demand for high power and high energy density electrochemical energy storage devices.