Since aluminum is the third most abundant element in Earth’s crust, developing rechargeable aluminum-ion offers¹ a golden opportunity for delivering a high energy-to-price ratio. Nevertheless, finding appropriate host electrodes for inserting aluminum (complex) ion remains a fundamental challenge. Here, we demonstrate² a new strategy for designing active materials for rechargeable aluminum batteries. This strategy entails the use of redox-active triangular phenanthrenequinone-based macrocycles which form layered superstructures resulting in the reversible insertion and extraction of cationic aluminum complex. This architecture exhibits an outstanding electrochemical performance with a reversible capacity of 110 mAh g^–1 along with a superior cyclability of up to 5000 cycles. Furthermore, we prepared a hybrid electrode by blending the macrocycle with graphite flakes, featuring homogeneous stacking of both macrocycle and graphite flake. These findings lay the groundwork for future design and operation of aluminium-ion batteries and represent a promising starting point for developing affordable large-scale energy storage applications.

References

1. M. -C. Lin, et al. Nature 2015, 520, 324–328.
2. D. J. Kim, D.-J. Yoo, M. T. Otley, A. Prokofjevs, C. Pezzato, M. Owczarek, S. J. Lee, J. W. Choi, and J. F. Stoddart, Nat. Energy, 2019, 4, 51–59.