3D organic polymer battery lasts 40,000 cycles without fading

A collaborative research team from China and Singapore has developed a groundbreaking 3D polymer-based zinc–organic battery that achieves unprecedented stability and voltage performance. The battery uses a novel hexaazatriphenylene-based polymer (HAT-TP) constructed via a 3D framework combining hexaazatrinaphtylene and hexaaminotriptycene units. This design addresses longstanding challenges in organic cathodes, such as solubility and conductivity issues, resulting in a battery that delivers an initial discharge voltage of 1.32 volts and retains 93.4% of its capacity after an extraordinary 40,000 charge-discharge cycles. The battery also operates with nearly 100% Coulombic efficiency and benefits from a reversible Zn²⁺/H⁺ co-insertion mechanism enabling high redox activity through a five-electron transfer process. The HAT-TP polymer’s porous 3D structure, confirmed by various characterization techniques, is key to its superior electro