CHEMISTRY SEMINAR

 

 

♧ Speaker: Prof. Yoonseob Kim (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China)

♧ Date: 2026. 1. 27. (Tue), 16:00

♧ Venue: Chemistry Bldg. Room #400

  

Covalent Organic Frameworks for Next-Generation Batteries: Design and Applications 

            One of the recently developed polymers with high porosity and crystallinity, called porous crystalline polymers, includes covalent organic frameworks (COFs). COFs with ionic functional groups can rapidly, selectively, and reliably transport ions, e.g., Li⁺, Na⁺, Zn²⁺, or Ca²⁺. These ionic COFs (iCOFs) are incorporated in energy devices for enhanced transport and safety, outperforming known electrolytes and enabling the next-generation batteries. A key feature of the iCOFs is that they are solid-state single-ion conductors. We developed new iCOFs, including those bearing hypervalent nodes, redox-active moieties, three-dimensional network topologies, etc. We have demonstrated that iCOF-based batteries offer significantly improved safety while showing better performance than the liquid electrolytes. The iCOFs we have developed showed the highest Li⁺ conductivity of 9.8 mS cm^–1 at r.t. and a transference number of 0.92 (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2023). We demonstrated that iCOF/polymer composite can be an excellent all-solid-state electrolyte for lithium metal batteries (LMBs), meeting industry standards (Adv. Energy Mater. 2024). We also demonstrated that multicomponent reactions can yield iCOF-based quasi-solid-state electrolytes (QSSEs) for LMBs (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024), and phosphonium COFs as QSSEs for zinc–air batteries (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024). Current efforts include iCOF applications in anode-free alkali (Li/Na) metal batteries, high-valent ion batteries, e.g., Ca-ion batteries, lithium–sulfur batteries, etc. Overall, iCOF’s advantageous properties enable the development of next-generation batteries (Adv. Mater. 2021; Adv. Mater. 2024).