Pseudocapacitive enhancement for layered PI@MXene porous organic cathode in advanced lithium-ion batteries

Polyimide (PI) organic cathode has recently gained popularity, but the insufficient utilization of the redox-active sites restricts its applications due to the poor ionic and electronic transporting performances. A new layered porous organic cathode was designed/fabricated by using few-layered MXene as the matrix, and porous polyimide (PI) as the coating to activate the active carbonyl groups (PI@MXene). The bonding structures of the as-synthesized samples were tested by FT-IR spectroscopy. The existence of few-layered MXene in the sample was confirmed by XRD and XPS analysis. By adjusting the ratio of MXene, PI@MXene with 5 wt% MXene (PI@5%MXene) shows the surface morphology of thin layered porous structure. Due to the existence of few-layered MXene, PI@ 5%MXene porous cathode can provide multiple channels for fast electronic and ionic transporting inside the composite, resulting in the enhanced pseudocapacitive effect. Therefore, the PI@ 5%MXene cell deserves excellent electrochemical performances. This work may provide a promising strategy for the development of high-performance polyimide hybrid electrodes. •Fabrication of novel layered PI@MXene organic cathode for lithium-ion battery.•Faster electron transport and Li+ diffusion from the layered porous PI@MXene structure.•Enhanced pseudocapacitive effects for excellent electrochemical performances of PI@MXene.