Investigations on the electrochemical behaviors of hexaazatriphenylene derivative as high-performance electrode for batteries

Organic compounds have become potential electrode candidates due to their environmentally friendly, widely sourced advantages compared to inorganics. Nevertheless, developing organic electrode materials with high performance and green sustainability remains an important challenge. Hexaazatriphenylene (HAT) derivatives have shown good application prospects as organic electrodes. Herein, benzo[i]benzo[6,7]quinoxalino[2,3-a]benzo[6,7]quinoxalino[2,3-c]phenazine(BBQP) was prepared and investigated as the cathode material for aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) and anode for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Benefiting from the large extended π-conjugated aromatic structure, insolubility and high capacitive contribution BBQP electrode presented outstanding rate capability (66.6 mA h g−1 at 10 A g−1) and excellent long cycle lifespan (112.5 mA h g−1 over 2000 cycles at 1 A g−1) in AZIBs. In addition, various ex-situ characterization (FT-IR, Raman, XPS and SEM-EDS mapping) confirmed that the C=N bonds of BBQP electrode were the active center during the storage of Zn2+. Moreover, the Li//BBQP battery also showed impressively high initial charge specific capacity (724.1 mA h g−1 at 0.05 A g−1) and decent cycle stability (323.4 mA h g−1 over 1000 cycles at 1 A g−1), showing the promising application in LIBs. This research offers a reasonable method for constructing high-performance batteries with novel organics.