Dai Group Published in ACS Energy Letters

December 11, 2020 by Kayla Benson

The Dai group published their research “Surpassing the Organic Cathode Performance for Lithium-Ion Batteries with Robust Fluorinated Covalent Quinazoline Networks” in  ACS Energy Letters.

Organic electrode materials have promising application prospects in energy storage, but issues including rapid capacity fading and poor power capacity restrict their practical applications. Herein, nanoporous fluorinated covalent quinazoline networks (F-CQNs) were constructed by condensation of fluorinated aromatic aminonitrile precursors via an ionothermal pathway.

Precise control of the reaction parameters afforded F-CQN-1-600 material featuring high surface area, permanent porosity, high nitrogen content (23.49 wt %), extended π-conjugated architecture, layered structure, and bipolar combination of benzene and tricycloquinazoline. Synergy among these unique properties leads to a good performance as a cathode source for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in terms of high capacity (250 mA h g^–1 at 0.1 A g^–1), high rate capability (105 mA h g^–1 at 5.0 A g^–1), and impressive cycling stability (95.8% retention rate after 2000 cycles at 2.0 A g^–1 together with a high Coulombic efficiency of 99.95%), surpassing most of the previous organic cathode counterparts

Dai Published in Chem

December 11, 2020 by Kayla Benson

In a collaborative piece, UT Chemistry’s Sheng Dai and Pasquale Fulvio from Texas A&M’s Department of Nuclear Engineering published their work “Porous Liquids: The Next Frontier” in Chem.

Porous liquids are a new class of molecular- and colloidal-size porous materials that combine permanent porosity of solid sorbents and fluid properties of liquids. Different from transient molecular clathrates, porous liquids have the potential to reinvent materials syntheses and unify homogeneous and heterogeneous separations and catalytic and energy-related processes, previously ascribed to liquids and porous solids, respectively.

Surface areas and pore volumes of the first examples of porous liquids based on porous molecular organic cages restricted their potential for technological applications. Recent advances in ionic liquid-based colloidal suspensions or covalently stabilized nanocomposites have improved the adsorption properties and increased our ability to tailor chemical composition and pore architecture. These hybrid porous liquids, however, still present challenges such as high melting temperatures, density, and viscosity.

This critical review discusses these challenges and presents opportunities for selected emerging applications based on analogous structure to that of traditional colloidal systems.