All-Solid-State Rechargeable Air Batteries with Naphthoquinone-Based Negative Electrodes: Improved Performance and Cyclability

All-solid-state rechargeable air batteries are designed and fabricated using 1,4-naphthoquinone as a negative electrode, proton-conductive polymer membrane as a solid electrolyte, and platinum-based oxygen diffusion as a positive electrode as an emerging energy device. 1,4-Naphthoquinone molecules exhibit reversible redox reactions peaked at 0.28 and 0.52 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode with the polymer electrolyte similar to that in an acid aqueous solution. The all-solid-state rechargeable air battery cell shows an open circuit voltage of 0.83 V, a nominal voltage of 0.3–0.4 V, a discharge capacity of 83.6 mAh g⁻¹, and an initial Coulombic efficiency of 86.8%. The Coulombic efficiency after 15 charge–discharge cycles improves from 57.3% to 69.1% by replacing carbon black with graphite carbon as a support for the platinum catalyst in the positive electrode. Furthermore, replacing the commercial Nafion electrolyte membrane with the synthesized (in-house) polyphenylene-based ionomer (sulfonated polyphenylene-quinquephenylene) electrolyte membrane improves the cycle durability of the resulting all-solid-state rechargeable air battery with high Coulombic efficiency retention (>98%) after 135 cycles owing to the lower oxygen permeability of the latter membrane. Overall, the present all-solid-state rechargeable air battery using 1,4-naphthoquinone outperforms our previous all-solid-state rechargeable air battery using dihydroxybenzoquinene as a redox-active molecule.