(Invited) Contribution of Organic Molecular Compounds to Electrochemical Energy Storage
Authors: Becuwe Matthieu 
Published: December 2020

Contribution of organic molecular compounds to electrochemical energy storage

Dr. Matthieu Becuwe

Laboratoire de Réactivité et Chimie des Solides (LRCS), UMR CNRS 7314, Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV), Amiens, 33 rue Saint-leu, 80039 Amiens, France

Matthieu.becuwe@u-picardie.fr

We are currently facing global climate change caused by the worldwide rise of the average temperature. This increase is directly linked to the release of greenhouse gases by human activities, which is constantly increasing. To hamper this critical issue, a complete overhaul of our habits in terms of transport, energy production and consumption is required. This has already started with the growth of renewable energies. However, owing to the intermittency of these processes, it is essential to have efficient storage systems for delivering on-demand and transporting the energy thus produced.
Electrochemical ion-based storage systems are currently the most efficient systems addressing these specifications. Nevertheless, the electroactive compounds used as an electrode in these systems are exclusively inorganic materials based on Co, Mn, Fe, Ni, V, W... which are exhaustible, difficult to recycle and sometimes toxic.[
1
] A promising solution to overcome these problems is to use renewable resources such as organic compounds, from inedible agro-resources and/or "green" synthesis processes taking into account the sourcing aspect and ecological durability, to create sustainable efficient easy recycling electrical energy storage systems.[
2
]

With this aim, our attention was caught during the last years on the employment of electroactive and molecular compounds for faradic and capacitive electrode materials. Specific efforts were placed on the improvement of negative electrode materials for LiB, based on conjugated lithium carboxylate, with especially the enhancement of the power density and the tuning of the redox potential through molecular engineering. [3-6] Interest of molecular organic compounds resides also in the possibility to be strongly coupled with inorganic materials in order to improve their performances through an organic/inorganic hybrid approach. In this sense, a specific focus will be made on the surface modification of metal oxides, polyanionic framework or carbon-based materials by grafting and chemical adsorption techniques which lead to significant improvement of the storage capacity and conductive properties, for instance.[7-8]

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4 L. Fédèle, F. Sauvage, S. Gottis, C. Davoisne, E. Salager, J.-N. Chotard, M. Becuwe, Chem. Mater., 2017, 29, 546–554.
5 A.E. Lakraychi, F. Dolhem, M. Becuwe, Electrochemistry Communications, 93, 71-75, 2018
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6 A. E. Lakraychi, F. Dolhem, F. Djedaïni-Pilard, A. Thiam, C. Frayret, M. Becuwe, J. Power Sources, 2017, 359, 198–204.
7 M. Boota, M. Becuwe, Y. Gogotsi, ACS Appl. Energy Mater., 3, 4, 3144-3149, 2020
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8 M. Boota, C. Chen, M. Bécuwe, L. Miao, Y. Gogotsi, Energy and Environmental Science, 9, 2586-2594, 2016.