Commercializable Naphthalene Diimide Anolytes for Neutral Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Batteries

Neutral aqueous organic redox flow batteries (AORFBs) hold the potential to facilitate the transition of renewable energy sources from auxiliary to primary energy, the commercial production of anolyte materials still suffers from insufficient performance of high-concentration and the high cost of the preparation problem. To overcome these challenges, this study provides a hydrothermal synthesis methodology and introduces the charged functional groups into hydrophobic naphthalene diimide cores, and prepares a series of high-performance naphthalene diimide anolytes. Under the synergistic effect of π–π stacking and H-bonding networks, the naphthalene diimide exhibits excellent structural stability and the highest water solubility (1.85 M for dex-NDI) reported to date. By employing the hydrothermal method, low-cost naphthalene diimides are successfully synthesized on a hundred-gram scale of $0.16 g⁻¹ ($2.43 Ah⁻¹), which is also the lowest price reported to date. The constructed full battery achieves a high electron concentration of 2.4 M, a high capacity of 54.4 Ah L⁻¹, and a power density of 318 mW cm⁻² with no significant capacity decay observed during long-duration cycling. These findings provide crucial support for the commercialization of AORFBs and pave the way for revolutionary developments in neutral AORFBs.