Positioning Organic Electrode Materials in the Battery Landscape

The quest for cheaper, safer, higher-density, and more resource-abundant energy storage has driven significant battery innovations. In the context of material development for next-generation batteries, here we compare head-to-head organic battery electrode materials (OBEMs) with dominating/competing inorganic materials through analyses of charge storage mechanism, working potential, specific capacity, resource availability, and more. We show that from high-energy lithium batteries to aqueous and all-solid-state batteries, OBEMs can be designed to be sufficiently capable and offer unique feature sets unmatched by other materials. Future research directions toward practical application of OBEMs are discussed.