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Updated: Sep 23, 2025

A Facile and Efficient Approach for the Production of Reversible Disulfide Cross-linked Micelles
Published on: December 23, 2016
Synthesis and Characterization of Redox-Responsive Disulfide Cross-Linked Polymer Particles for Energy Storage
Garrett L Grocke1,2, Hongyi Zhang1,2, Samuel S Kopfinger1
1Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States.
Abstract:
Cross-linking poly(glycidyl methacrylate) microparticles with redox-responsive bis(5-amino-l,3,4-thiadiazol-2-yl) disulfide moieties yield redox-active particles (RAPs) capable of electrochemical energy storage via a reversible 2-electron reduction of the disulfide bond. The resulting RAPs show improved electrochemical reversibility compared to a small-molecule disulfide analogue in solution, attributed to spatial confinement of the polymer-grafted disulfides in the particle. Galvanostatic cycling was used to investigate the impact of electrolyte selection on stability and specific capacity. A dimethyl sulfoxide/magnesium triflate electrolyte was ultimately selected for its favorable electrochemical reversibility and specific capacity. Additionally, the specific capacity showed a strong dependence on particle size where smaller particles yielded higher specific capacity. Overall, these experiments offer a promising direction in designing synthetically facile and electrochemically stable materials for organosulfur-based multielectron energy storage coupled with beyond Li ion systems such as Mg.
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