Conductive polymers, which are synthetic materials containing large molecules that can conduct electricity, offer a wide variety of useful uses. They have been utilised to make sensors, light-emitting diodes, photovoltaics, and other technologies. These conductive materials have shown to be especially promising in recent years for the development of energy conversion and storage devices, such as batteries. However, techniques for incorporating these functions are not always dependable, limiting the large-scale application of batteries based on these materials.
Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley have presented an approach that might aid in the development of hierarchically ordered structures (HOS) with well-defined forms in conductive polymers. This method, described in a report published in Nature Energy, might pave the way for the development of high-performance battery technologies, notably lithium-ion batteries.
“Organic functionalities are provided by bottom-up synthetic techniques to increase certain characteristics by modification of the individual polymers in the typical design of conductive polymers,” Tianyu Zhu and his colleagues said in their research. “Unfortunately, the inclusion of functional groups produces contradictory results, restricting their scalable synthesis and extensive applicability. We present a conductive polymer composed of simple fundamental building blocks that can be thermally treated to form hierarchically ordered structures (HOS) with well-defined nanocrystalline morphologies.”
Rather than altering the main structures of conductive polymers, Zhu and his colleagues investigated the feasibility of building well-organized 3D architectures on the materials. These structures may allow the required capabilities without increasing the basic structural complexity of a polymer. A regulated heating method is used by the researchers to manufacture these structures. They employed it especially to enhance the mechanical and transport characteristics of a conductive polymer known as poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-co-fluorenoneco-methylbenzoic ester) or PFM as part of their research.
“Our technique to creating permanent HOS in conductive polymers leads to significant improvements in charge transport characteristics and mechanical resilience, both of which are crucial for practical lithium-ion batteries,” Zhu and his colleagues said in their research. “Finally, we show that conductive polymers with HOS allow outstanding cycling performance of complete cells with high-loading micron-size SiOx-based anodes over 300 cycles, yielding areal capacities of greater than 3.0 mAh cm2 and average Coulombic efficiency of >99.95%.”
Initial tests undertaken by this team of researchers provided highly encouraging results, indicating the potential of their technique in improving the functions of conductive polymers. Zhu and his colleagues subsequently demonstrated that these improved polymers may be used to create high-performance lithium-ion batteries.
While the researchers have so far focused on the polymer PFM, their technology might potentially be used to alter the transport characteristics of a broad variety of other conductive polymers. This implies that it might assist to improve the stability, transport efficiency, and durability of a wide range of technologies and systems, including biological sensors, displays, and photovoltaics.
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