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Rechargeable aluminium organic batteries

Abstract

Since aluminium is one of the most widely available elements in Earth’s crust, developing rechargeable aluminium batteries offers an ideal opportunity to deliver cells with high energy-to-price ratios. Nevertheless, finding appropriate host electrodes for insertion of aluminium (complex) ions remains a fundamental challenge. Here, we demonstrate a strategy for designing active materials for rechargeable aluminium batteries. This strategy entails the use of redox-active triangular phenanthrenequinone-based macrocycles, which form layered superstructures resulting in the reversible insertion and extraction of a cationic aluminium complex. This architecture exhibits an outstanding electrochemical performance with a reversible capacity of 110 mA h g–1 along with a superior cyclability of up to 5,000 cycles. Furthermore, electrodes composed of these macrocycles blended with graphite flakes result in higher specific capacity, electronic conductivity and areal loading. These findings constitute a major advance in the design of rechargeable aluminium batteries and represent a good starting point for addressing affordable large-scale energy storage.

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Fig. 1: Series of PQ derivatives for rechargeable ALBs.
Fig. 2: Electrochemical measurements of PQ derivatives.
Fig. 3: Ex situ characterization of PQ-Δ.
Fig. 4: Fabrication of the graphite-flake-blended PQ triangle hybrid (PQ-Δ-HY) and its electrochemical performance.
Fig. 5: Mechanical stability and electrochemical performance of the hybrid electrode.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was conducted as part of the Joint Center of Excellence in Integrated Nanosystems at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and Northwestern University (NU). The authors acknowledge both KACST and NU for their financial support of this research. The Integrated Molecular Structure Education and Research Center (IMSERC) at NU is acknowledged for the use of its facilities. J.W.C. acknowledges support by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grants funded by the Korea government (MEST) (NRF-2018R1A2A1A19023146, NRF-2017M1A2A2044477 and NRF-2018M1A2A2063340) and the Energy Efficiency and Resources Core Technology Programme of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP), which is granted financial resources from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Republic of Korea (20152020104870).

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Contributions

D.J.K. and D.-J.Y. designed and performed experimental work. D.J.K., M.T.O., A.P. and M.O. worked on synthesis and characterisation of active materials. D.-J.Y. measured ALB performance. D.-J.Y. and S.J.L. conducted ex-situ analysis of active materials. D.J.K., A.P., D.-J.Y., J.W.C. and J.F.S. wrote the manuscript. J.W.C. and J.F.S. directed this work. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jang Wook Choi or J. Fraser Stoddart.

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Kim, D.J., Yoo, DJ., Otley, M.T. et al. Rechargeable aluminium organic batteries. Nat Energy 4, 51–59 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-018-0291-0

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