2,3,6,7,10,11-Hexamethoxytriphenylene (HMTP): A new organic cathode material for lithium batteries

Abstract

We propose a new organic cathode material for rechargeable lithium battery applications: 2,3,6,7,10,11-hexamethoxytriphenylene (HMTP). HMTP is composed of six methoxy functional groups substituted onto a central triphenylene moiety. The cell, incorporating 40 wt.% of organic cathode material, exhibits full specific capacity at current densities up to 3 C. The main advantage of HMTP as organic cathode material lies in a stable cell performance and negligible self discharge, even though the capacity is lower, similar to 66 mAh/g, compared to other organic cathode materials. Cells with the HMTP cathode showed >95% retention of the initial discharge capacity after 50 cycles at 1 C and self-discharge was not observed during a full month of open circuit voltage measurements. The latter is due to the fact that the nature of the HMTP radical is fundamentally different from other organic cathode materials' radicals. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.