Pyrene-Tethered Telluroviologen Both as Cathode and Anode for All Organic Symmetrical Lithium-Ion Batteries

Organic materials offer many advantages as electrodes for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), including environmental friendliness, flexibility in design, and lightweight. Herein, we demonstrate the successful design and fabrication of pyrene-tethered telluroviologen ( Py 2 TeV )/single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) composite (denoted as Py 2 TeV/SWCNTs ), in which the Py 2 TeV is stably adsorbed onto SWCNTs via π–π interactions. The conjunction of Py 2 TeV/SWCNTs effectively suppresses the solubility and improves the stability of the organic materials, thus endowing Py 2 TeV/SWCNTs with excellent electronic properties, as compared to the pyrene-tethered parent viologen Py 2 V/SWCNTs mixture. When examined as electrode materials for LIBs, the Py 2 TeV/SWCNTs display superior electrochemical performance, displaying an initial capacity of 68.5 mAh g –1 and a long-life cycling performance up to 23 mAh g –1 after 500 cycles. Due to the characteristic electrochemical properties of Py 2 TeV/SWCNTs, they can be used as both cathode and anode electrodes to fabricate all-organic symmetrical LIBs, which show a reversible capacity (27.6 mAh g –1 ) after 100 cycles, indicating their potential for the exploration of organic LIBs in the future.