Organic Negative Electrode Materials for Metal‐Ion and Molecular‐Ion Batteries: Progress and Challenges from a Molecular Engineering Perspective

In the critical area of sustainable energy storage, organic batteries are gaining momentum as strong candidates thanks to their lower environmental footprint and great structural versatility. A plethora of organic materials have been proposed and evaluated as both positive and negative electrode materials. Whereas positive electrode chemistries have attracted extensive attention in the context of practical research and advances overviews, the negative electrode field remains poorly analyzed from a critical point of view. This review summarizes and provides an assessment of different classes of organic compounds with potential applications as negative electrode materials for metal‐ion and molecular‐ion batteries. The impact of molecular design on the electrochemical performance and guidelines for remaining challenges are highlighted. Organic negative electrode materials have seen tremendous progress in recent years, leading to the assembly of many all‐organic, hybrid metal‐ion and molecular‐ion battery prototypes. This review presents an overview of the subject area from a molecular engineering perspective. Guidelines and challenges are highlighted for future development.