Investigating the capabilities of pyrazine dioxide based-compounds as organic electrodes for batteries

Abstract

Understanding structure-property relationships in the field of redox-active molecular species is of central importance in various fields including many medicinal and chemical applications. The search for performant organic electrodes in the context of energy storage calls for pioneering studies to develop new and possibly optimal materials. Beyond modifying the molecular design of the existing compounds through functionalization, expansion of the search enabling the advent of efficient new backbones can potentially lead to breakthroughs in this research area. The number of already identified families able to constitute negative organic electrodes being much lower than that of their positive counterparts, this calls for finding ways to bridge this gap. To enlarge the dataset of predicted redox potentials in view of moving toward an educated guess of redox active electrodes, we have examined the properties of pyrazine N,N’-dioxide (PZDO) and its fully methylated functionalized derivative (TeMePzDO). Unravelling aspects and mechanisms driving the various features characterizing these compounds was gained through molecular and crystalline DFT calculations combined with an accurate electronic structure analysis. Predicted molecular redox/crystalline intercalation potentials lead to classify both PZDO and TeMePzDO systems within the class of negative electrodes, with features that are significantly appealing compared to those of some existing systems with backbones suited for such kind of application.