Bottom-up electrochemical deposition of poly(styrene sulfonate) on nano-architectured electrodes

The cathodic deposition of poly(styrene sulfonate) on nano-architectured TiO2 electrodes is explored by cyclic voltammetry and potentiostatic and galvanostatic experiments, showing a diffusion-controlled deposition described by Cottrell's law. The structure and composition of the polymer is evidenced by various spectroscopic techniques, including NMR, FTIR and XPS and its morphology is studied by SEM. The average chain length can be estimated from the NMR spectra. The electropolymerisation mechanism initiates by radical anion formation. The cycling behaviour in half-cell batteries against Li metal is excellent, especially at high rates explored up to 10 C. The areal insertion capacity is above recent literature results, up to 80 ?Ah cm-2. The combination of normalized areal power density and areal energy density is one of the best reported in literature.