First-principles study of polyacetylene derivatives bearing nitroxide radicals

Abstract

Electrodes made of organic polymers bearing redox-active radical pendant groups have attractive features for use in rechargeable batteries. Electronic structure and electrochemical properties of cathode-and anode-active organic polymers are investigated here by means of first-principles calculations performed in the framework of the density functional theory. We consider organic radical polymers (ORPs) that consist of trans-polyacetylene derivatives bearing a variety of nitroxide radicals. A number of neutral and charged supercells are utilized to compute the ionization potentials and electron affinities as well as the one-electron states of these ORPs. By revealing the polyacetylene-derived highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) as well as the radical-derived singly occupied molecular orbital (SOMO), the variation of the SOMO energy within the HOMO-LUMO gap is determined in the course of the oxidization or reduction of ORPs. Our results indicate that the ionization potential I and electron affinity A of polyacetylene would act as a lower or upper bound in the variation of the electrochemical potential of cathode- or anode-active ORPs in the course of battery discharge or charge owing to pinning of the radical-derived SOMO to the polyacetylene-derived HOMO or LUMO. Accordingly, it is anticipated that the electrochemical window [-I,-A] of the polymeric backbone of ORPs will impose certain limitations in accomplishing a high charge/discharge voltage range in a totally organic rechargeable battery with positive and negative electrodes made of cathode-and anode-active ORPs, respectively. On the other hand, our findings suggest that one could, in principle, take advantage of using two different (conducting) polymeric backbones in the anode and cathode with adjusted HOMO and LUMO offsets once the electron transfer is accomplished to take place through the conducting backbones.