A low-cost naphthaldiimide based organic cathode for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries

Recently, the development of cathode materials is becoming an important issue for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Compared with inorganic cathodes, the organic cathodes are developing rapidly, ascribing to their distinct merits in light weight, low cost, massive organic resources and high capacity. In this paper, a cost-efficiency naphthaldiimide (NDI) based derivative, 2,7-bis(2-((2-hydroxyethyl) amino) ethyl) benzo[lmn] [3,8] phenanthroline-1,3,6,8(2H, 7H)-tetraone (NDI-NHOH), was used as organic cathode in LIBs. The NDI-NHOH was synthesized easily via one-step process, and it showed very high thermal stability. Through mixing NDI-NHOH with acetylene black and polyvinylidene fluoride (weight ratio of 6:3:1) as composite cathode in lithium-metal based LIBs, the NDI-NHOH presented versatile electrochemical properties. From cyclic voltammetry (CV) test, it exhibited two reversible peaks for oxidation and reduction in the first cycle, respectively. Notably, the oxidation and reduction peaks were located at 2.54, 3.22 and 2.14, 2.32 V vs. Li+/Li, respectively. By employing NDI-NHOH as cathode, it demonstrated a specific capacity of about 80 mAh g−1 in the range of 1.5–3.5 V, where the batteries retained a capacity retention of 50% over 20 cycles. According to the LIBs study, it suggests that the NDI-NHOH-based derivative shows a potentially promising candidate as efficient organic cathode materials for high-performance metal-ions batteries.