Progress of Polymer-based Electrode Materials in Electrochemical Energy Storage

Efficient electrochemically active materials are one of the key materials for achieving high-performance electrochemical energy storage devices. How to precisely regulate the microstructure of electrode materials at the atomic level and develop effective synthesis methods to achieve structure-controlled synthesis are scientific problems of great interest and the frontier of basic research. With the advantages of rich physical and chemical structures and adjustable functional group types, polymers have become an important type of materials in modern industrial development. In particular, rigid aromatic heterocyclic polymer-based materials have been widely used in electrochemical energy storage in recent years because they contain aromatic heterocyclic structures, facilitate high-temperature polymerization, have high residual carbon rates, and have good elemental and morphological inheritance after carbonization. In this feature article, we summarized the applications of rigid aromatic heterocyclic polymer-based electrode materials in electrochemical energy storage devices such as supercapacitors, sodium-ion batteries, and lithium-sulfur batteries. In particular, we discussed a series of elemental and morphology-controlled polymer-based electrode materials created by our group through intrinsic doping. Finally, the future research directions of polymer-based materials in the field of energy are summarized and prospected.