Plastic power, or energy storage platforms primarily consisting of polymers, offers opportunities never before available in current state-of-the-art prismatic or coin cells, such as flexible, structural, or stretchable batteries and capacitors. This talk will first introduce how electrochemically active polymers operate, their specific challenges, and latest advances. Recent work in organic radical polymer batteries and their redox mechanism is specifically of interest. Organic radical polymers are interesting for their rapid redox kinetics, high power, and radical-based chemistry. These polymers exchange electrons and ions by a process very different from conjugated polymers such as polyaniline. The origin of this process is evaluated, as well as how it may be manipulated by adjusting the polymer backbone chemistry. Conjugated backcones and aliphatic backbones with pendant radical groups are compared, where it is shown that the conjugated backbone participates in internal electron transfer with the radical group. Looking into the future, polymers may be the enabling factor towards unconventional batteries, possibly merging plastic electronics with plastic power to form a new paradigm.

Materials chemistry for plastic batteries

255th National Meeting (2018)

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