Bio-inspired Polymers as Organic Electrodes for Batteries

With the ever-increasing demand for energy sources, worldwide attention has been given to the development of advanced materials for energy storage applications, specifically for batteries. The use of abundant natural resources in such applications seems to be a simple and useful solution since they meet the 3E requirements of (i) excellent performance, (ii) environmental friendliness, and (iii) ease of handling. Indeed, although most academic research demonstrates the superior energy performance of electrode materials proposed in the literature for different types of batteries, they also suffer from early deterioration during charge and discharge cycles, leading to their short lifespan. Bio-inspired polymers such as polysaccharides, natural cellulosic fibers, quinones, flavins, and others represent the most bio-renewable resources suggested for developing and designing highly efficient materials as organic electrodes for batteries. These bio-inspired materials present a great diversity of structures and properties, adapted to the constraints of the environment and the type of electrode envisaged, and even participate in the improvement of their performances for long-term applications. This book chapter aims to provide an overview of recent advances in bio-inspired polymers for energy storage applications, especially as organic electrodes for batteries. Thus, before introducing the different categories of bio-inspired polymers used as electrodes for different types of batteries and the basic principle of their use, it was first found necessary to start with a general state of the art survey on batteries through the presentation of the fundamental principle of their working, their principal components and characteristics.