My PhD research has focused on the design of organic redox materials for grid-scale energy applications. These organics, which can be produced from the existing petrochemical supply chain and eventually through a circular carbon economy, offer a more secure path than metals, which often present numerous sustainability concerns with international mining practices and limited reserves. Specially, I have focused on the application of these materials for redox flow battery, a promising technology to enable safe and scalable long-duration energy storage and support deep penetration of renewable solar and wind. Chapter One will focus on the historical development and fundamental principles of this emerging class of materials. Chapter Two and Chapter Three will demonstrate how the tunability of organic structures can be leveraged to design novel materials that overcome the historical performance and scalability challenges of conventional flow battery electrolytes. Finally, Chapter Four will demonstrate how organic molecules can also be used to enhance conventional redox systems. Overall, my research has paved the way for the widespread commercial application of organic redox materials and will hopefully spur additional innovation for the next generation of clean energy devices.

Providing a thorough overview of leading research from internationally-recognized contributing authors, this book describes methods for the preparation and application of redox systems for organic electronic materials like transistors, photovoltaics, and batteries. Covers bond formation and cleavage, supramolecular systems, molecular design, and synthesis and properties Addresses preparative methods, unique structural features, physical properties, and material applications of redox active p-conjugated systems Offers a useful guide for both academic and industrial chemists involved with organic electronic materials Focuses on the transition-metal-free redox systems composed of organic and organo main group compounds

Redox Polymers for Energy and Nanomedicine highlights trends in the chemistry, characterization and application of polymers with redox properties.

Polymers with redox properties are electroactive macromolecules containing localized sites or groups that can be oxidized and reduced. Depending on the oxidation state, redox polymers can present different electronic, optical, mechanical or chemical properties. These polymers are finding new applications in materials science, as well as being included in the design of a number of electrochemical devices. Redox Polymers for Energy and Nanomedicine highlights trends in the chemistry, characterization and application of polymers with redox properties. The book starts with an introduction to redox polymers and covers several important topics including redox polymer types, state-of-the-art characterization techniques, synthetic strategies and theory and computational studies. The second part is devoted to the redox polymers applied in energy and nanomedicine. First, the most important redox polymer families in energy storage are reviewed, i.e, radical, phenothiazine, carbonyl and catechol containing polymers. The book also contains recent developments in redox polymers for biofuel cells and all-organic batteries. Second, the emerging applications of redox polymers in nanomedicine technologies such as, tissue engineering, drug-delivery, actuators or biosensors are explained in detail. With contributions from global experts, the book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers working in polymer science, electrochemistry, energy research and nanomedicine.

Flow batteries have received attention in large-scale energy storage due to their flexible design, high safety, high energy efficiency, and environmental friendliness. In recent years, they have been rapidly developed and tested in a variety of scales that prove their feasibility and advantages of use. As energy becomes a global focus, it is important to consider flow battery systems. This book offers a detailed introduction to the function of different kinds of redox flow batteries, including vanadium flow batteries, as well as the electrochemical processes for their development, materials and components, applications, and near future prospects. Redox Flow Batteries: Fundamentals and Applications will give readers a full understanding of flow batteries from fundamentals to commercial applications.

Many key aspects of life are based on naturally occurring polymers, such as polysaccharides, proteins and DNA. Unsurprisingly, their molecular functionalities, macromolecular structures and material properties are providing inspiration for designing new polymeric materials with specific functions, for example, responsive, adaptive and self-healing materials. Bio-inspired Polymers covers all aspects of the subject, ranging from the synthesis of novel polymers, to structure-property relationships, materials with advanced properties and applications of bio-inspired polymers in such diverse fields as drug delivery, tissue engineering, optical materials and lightweight structural materials. Written and edited by leading experts on the topic, the book provides a comprehensive review and essential graduate level text on bio-inspired polymers for biochemists, materials scientists and chemists working in both industry and academia.

Redox flow batteries (RFBs) have attracted immense research interests as one of the most promising energy storage devices for grid-scale energy storage. However, designing cost-effective systems with high energy and power density as well as long cycle life is still a big challenge for the development of next-generation RFBs. Eutectic electrolytes as a novel class of electrolytes have been recently explored to enhance the energy density of RFBs as they offer advantageous features such as low cost, ease of preparation, and high concentration of active materials. On the other hand, promising organic molecules with high solubility are also considered as potential candidates for next-generation RFBs due to the high tunability of redox potential, solubility, and stability. Furthermore, it is also necessary to design low-cost and high-performance membranes to realize the long-term stable cycling of RFBs. Here, the eutectic concept has been proposed as a new strategy to enable the design of highly concentrated electrolytes, thus boosting the energy density. The metal-based eutectic electrolytes are mainly formed by mixing anhydrous/hydrated metal halides with hydrogen bond donors (HBDs), such as urea or acetamide. Two metal-based eutectic electrolytes (Al & Fe) are mainly synthesized and studied and their redox reactions and physicochemical properties can be highly tuned. In the end, an all eutectic-based RFBs with high energy density is demonstrated. Besides, by incorporating the eutectic concept with the advantageous features of organic molecules, it becomes an alternative strategy to maximize the molar fraction of active species in organic-based eutectic electrolytes. Organic redox species can be further adopted to develop promising electrolytes with high concentration. By screening possible molecular structures integrated with molecular engineering and fundamental understanding, azobenzene- and organodisulfide-based molecules are found as promising redox species for high-energy and long-life RFBs. They show high solubility in supporting electrolytes and their electrochemical properties, stability, and redox chemistry are systematically studied via detailed electrochemical characterization and advanced calculation methods. Last but not least, we also explored the design of new membranes for RFBs. By utilizing the lamellar structure of stacked graphene oxide sheets or metal-organic frameworks, the designed membranes have the potential to provide high ionic conductivity and high selectivity for RFB applications. By integrating the highly concentrated electrolytes and new membrane design, we aim to provide an effective strategy to design the next-generation RFBs for grid-scale applications