4859wileyonlinelibrary.com low maintenance costs, and high energy densities, in order to replace nuclear energy or fi nite supplies of fossil fuels. Lithium-ion battery (LIB) technologies are considered to be promising candidates to meet those demands. [ 3,4 ] While most electrode materials in LIBs are based on inorganic elements or compounds, redox-active organic materials have recently gained attention as a fascinating class due to their ecofriendly production starting from renewable resources (biomass or natural compounds) and solution-phase reactions that avoid high-energy ceramic processes. [5][6][7][8][9] Moreover, the structural diversity of the organic building blocks (as scaffolds and substituents) allows the rational design of highperformance electrode materials. [10][11][12] The Chen group proposed a molecular-level engineering strategy to improve cell performance with respect to working potential, power density, rate capability, and cycling stability through the incorporation of fused heterocyclic moieties and pre-aromatic 1,2-dicarbonyl functional groups. [ 13,14 ] Ever since the fi rst demonstration of a primary battery utilizing organic molecules by Williams et al. in 1969, [ 15 ] new classes of organic materials have been developed for secondary batteries; these include conducting polymers, nitroxide-bearing radical polymers, disulfi des, and quinone derivatives. [16][17][18][19] In 2009, the seminal work of Tarascon and co-workers introduced organic anode materials on the basis of conjugated dicarboxylates including dilithium terephthalate (Li 2 TP) and dilithium trans , trans -muconate. [ 20 ] The organic salts exhibited excellent electrochemical performance in terms of enhanced thermal stability, good cyclability, and suitable redox potential. As shown in Scheme 1 a, Li 2 TP reacts with two lithium atoms to afford a conjugated enolate with a reversible capacity of about 300 mA h g −1 . According to Hünig's classifi cation, the carboxylate-enolate interconversion of Li 2 TP belongs to an inverseWurster-type system, where carboxylates are located outside a cyclic π-system that has aromaticity in the oxidized state. [ 21 ] Despite noteworthy progress, the utilization of organic-based materials involving two-electron insertion process is practically limited due to relatively low specifi c capacity values.
Mechanistic Studies of Transition Metal-Terephthalate Coordination Complexes upon Electrochemical Lithiation and DelithiationHyun Ho Lee , Yuwon Park , Su Hwan Kim , Sun-Hwa Yeon , Sang Kyu Kwak , Kyu Tae Lee , * and Sung You Hong * Redox-active organic molecules are intriguing candidates as active electrode materials for next-generation rechargeable batteries due to their structural diversity, environmental friendliness, and solution-phase preparation processes. Recently, a transition metal-organic coordination approach is exploited to construct high capacity anodes for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. Here, a family of transition metal-organic coordination complexes with terephthalate li...