Organic materials have attracted much attention for their utility as lithium-battery electrodes because their tunable structures can be sustainably prepared from abundant precursors in an environmentally friendly manner. Most research into organic electrodes has focused on the material level instead of evaluating performance in practical batteries. This Review addresses this by first providing an overview of the history and redox of organic electrode materials and then evaluating the prospects and remaining challenges of organic electrode materials for practical lithium batteries. Our evaluations are made according to energy density, power density, cycle life, gravimetric density, electronic conductivity and other relevant parameters, such as energy efficiency, cost and resource availability. We posit that research in this field must focus more on the intrinsic electronic conductivity and density of organic electrode materials, after which a comprehensive optimization of full batteries should be performed under practically relevant conditions. We hope to stimulate high-quality applied research that might see the future commercialization of organic electrode materials.

有机材料因其作为锂电池电极的用途而备受关注，因为它们的可调结构可以通过丰富的前体以环保的方式可持续地制备。大多数对有机电极的研究都集中在材料层面，而不是评估实际电池的性能。本综述通过首先概述有机电极材料的历史和氧化还原，然后评估用于实用锂电池的有机电极材料的前景和仍然存在的挑战来解决这个问题。我们的评估是根据能量密度、功率密度、循环寿命、重量密度、电子电导率和其他相关参数，如能源效率、成本和资源可用性进行的。我们认为该领域的研究必须更多地关注有机电极材料的本征电子电导率和密度，然后在实际相关条件下对全电池进行全面优化。我们希望激发高质量的应用研究，这可能会看到有机电极材料的未来商业化。