Tunable Redox-Active Triazenyl–Carbene Platforms: A New Class of Anolytes for Non-Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Batteries

Abstract

Non-aqueous all organic RFBs (NORFBs) are one of the promising options for large-scale renewable energy storage systems owing to their scalability with energy and power along with the affordability. The discovery of new redox-active organic molecules (ROMs) for anolyte/catholyte would bring them one step closer to the practical application, thus is highly demanded. Here, we report a new class of ROMs based on cationic triazenyl systems supported by N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs), and demonstrate, for the first time, that the triazenyl can serve as a new redox motif for ROMs, and could be significantly stabilized for the use in NORFBs by the coupling with NHCs even at radical states. A series of NHC-triazenyl ROM families were successfully synthesized via the reaction of synthon, N-heterocyclic carbene azido cation, with various lewis bases including NHCs. Remarkably, it is revealed that NHCs substituted on the triazenyl fragments can serve as a versatile platform for tailoring the electrochemical activity and stability of triazenyl-based compounds, introducing various ROMs exploiting triazenyl redox motif, as demonstrated in the full cell of NORFBs for an anolyte.