Dihydrophenazine‐Derived Redox Polymer from Industrial By‐Product as Lithium‐ion Battery Cathode Material

Abstract Advantaged with broad availibility and environmental sustainability, redox‐active organic polymers have recently been studied intensively as sustainable cathode materials for rechargeable lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs). Other than the inexhaustible biomass, wastes from the contemporary chemical industries are alternative sustainable resources to be explored as electrode materials. Phenazine, a by‐product from RT‐base industrial with annual yield of about 1,000 tonnes in China, releases about 3,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year to the environment when disposed of by burning directly. In this work, a novel phenazine‐derived polymer, poly(5‐methyl‐10‐(4‐vinylbenzyl)‐phenazine) (PVBPZ) featured with a robust redox‐active dihydrophenazine moiety, was achieved through a facile two‐pot synthetic procedure and explored as excellent cathode material of LIBs. PVBPZ exhibited robust cycling stability, outstanding rate performance, and high capacity retention (up to 90 %) after 300 cycles at 0.2 A g −1 . This work provides a feasible way to utilize phenazine as a valuable material, avoiding the release of huge amount of greenhouse gases and contributing to the relief of environmental deterioration.