Contorted polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon: Application as lithium ion host electrode

Abstract

Improving the rate performance of carbon material based anode in lithium ion battery (LIB) system is of considerably important in terms of next-generation lithium metal-based battery host electrodes, because the reversible lithium intercalation–de-intercalation process of such carbon-based anodes ultimately facilitates increases in LIB performance and longevity. This study presents a new type of carbon-based organic contorted hexabenzocoronene (c-HBC) material designed to achieve facile and reversible lithium ion insertion and stable cycling performance. The c-HBC exhibited a doubly concave molecular structure with a distorted pentacene core, which exhibits unique polymorphic crystalline structure following the solvent and thermal annealing. Our in-depth study based on grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD), cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (cross-sectional TEM) and computational investigation revealed that the large interspacing of the contorted molecule presents a viable structure for an organic-based LIB anode material. The resulting electrochemical characteristic of c-HBC anode clearly reflected single-stage lithium insertion associated with large d spacing and short lithium diffusion length, highlighting the suitability of c-HBC as an anode material for high-performance LIB systems.