Themed collection Battery science and technology – powered by chemistry

Perspective on recent improvements in experiment and theory towards realizing lithium metal electrodes with liquid electrolytes.

This perspective discusses the main issues with Zn anodes and highlights recent strategies to improve their performance in aqueous zinc ion batteries.

This Focus article clarifies that hollow multishelled structure-based electrode is indispensable to realize practically high energy density of rechargeable batteries.

An overview of high-entropy materials for energy applications, including H₂ catalysis and storage, CO₂ conversion, O₂ catalysis and electrochemical energy storage, is given and the challenges and opportunities within this field are discussed.

The limited resources and uneven distribution of lithium stimulate strong motivation to develop new rechargeable potassium-ion batteries that use alternative charge carriers.

This review summarizes the employment of different biomass materials for green lithium secondary batteries.

This review summarizes the recent advances of functional separators towards the suppression of lithium dendrites in lithium metal batteries.

This review provides a comprehensive overview about the “hidden champion” of lithium-ion battery technology – graphite.

This review article provides a comprehensive overview of solid-state Li–S batteries from the viewpoints of fundamental study and engineering design.

This review article summarizes the current trends and provides guidelines towards next-generation rechargeable lithium and lithium-ion battery chemistries.

This tutorial review presents an introduction to the fundamentals, challenges, recent advances and prospects of rechargeable zinc-ion batteries.

Mitigating molecular transport limitations in thick sintered battery electrodes with electrolyte and microstructure design.

Cell failure of polymer electrolytes is rather the result of short circuits instead of assumed electrolyte oxidation. A spacer with a constant and defined distance can avoid this failure, thus realize a benchmark system for a more systematic R&D.

A novel polymer with an extended π-conjugated structure (PPh-PTO) can show a delocalized electronic distribution and achieve a higher voltage, excellent cycle life, and good rate capabilities.

In this work, we visualize and quantify the microstructure evolution in the composite electrode after solid-state battery (SSB) cycling. The observed severe mechanical degradation highlights the importance of mechanical considerations in SSB design.

All-solid-state batteries exhibit good performance even at low operating stack pressure when soft electrode materials are used.

A highly reversible neutral zinc/manganese battery with two-electron transfer properties.

Highly Li⁺-conductive HfNb₂₄O₆₂ is explored as a new intercalation-type anode material for fast-charging, large-capacity, safe and durable Li⁺ storage.

With the retirement of a massive amount of end-of-life Li-ion batteries, proper disposal of the hazardous wastes and cost-effective valorization of useful materials have become increasingly pressing and have attracted extensive attention worldwide.

Involvement of dimethyl carbonate and trifluoromethanesulfonate anions in a hybrid aqueous electrolyte enables the formation of a new Zn²⁺-solvation structure and a ZnF₂–ZnCO₃-rich interphase that stabilizes the Zn battery chemistry.

Melt-quenched coordination polymer glass shows exclusive H⁺ conductivity (8.0 × 10⁻³ S cm⁻¹ at 120 °C, anhydrous) and optimal mechanical properties (42.8 Pa s at 120 °C), enables the operation of an all-solid-state proton battery from RT to 110 °C.

Sustainable carbon skeletons with rich defects and negligible pores are applied to induce the uniform metallic sodium deposition for stable sodium metal batteries.

A dual-cation concentrated electrolyte has been developed to enable a stable Zn anode and a vanadium-oxide-based cathode for efficient aqueous Zn-ion batteries.

The paper reports the performance of a nanostructured InSb alloy as a promising negative electrode for sodium-ion batteries.

Tilt grain boundaries, side surfaces (with respect to the (0001) surface) and a proper doping/alloying, such as Ca, in Mg electrode can accelerate the dissolution of the Mg atoms and result in higher current density.

Electric vehicle battery electrodes are delaminated ultra-fast using high-powered ultrasound, separating active materials from the foil current collectors.

The well-designed flame-retardant polymer electrolyte greatly improves the safety and cycle life of high energy density lithium metal batteries.

Both organic and aqueous zinc–selenium batteries deliver competitive capacity with a higher plateau voltage than traditional zinc ion batteries.

The observed ultra-long battery life of 8000 cycles demonstrated by the Ni-rich compositionally graded NCM cathode stems mainly from the cation ordered structure.

Sulfur defective V₅S₈/CNFs is synthesized by an electrospinning method, followed by sulfuration treatment. The obtained composite exhibits attractive capacities and ultra-stable cycling performances when using as anode materials for sodium-ion and potassium-ion batteries.

Large-scale low-cost preparation methods for high quality graphene are critical for advancing graphene-based applications in energy storage, and beyond.

All-organic aqueous batteries based on universal poly(imide) anodes and poly(catechol) cathodes with tunable cell voltage are reported by exploiting different charge carriers (Li⁺, Zn²⁺, Al³⁺, and Li⁺/H⁺). A full-cell achieves the highest energy/power density of 80.6 W h kg⁻¹/348 kW kg⁻¹ in Li⁺/H⁺.

The high sodium uptake capacity of antimony can be used for high performance water desalination by using a ceramic ion-exchange membrane.

Using first-principles calculations, we chart the chemical space of 3d transition metal-based NaSICON phosphates with the formula Na_xMM′(PO₄)₃ (with M and M′ = Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co and Ni). Novel NaSICON compositions were revealed.

ZnS quantum dots and single Co atoms grown in N-doped carbon microparticles serve as multifunctional S hosts for sustainable Na–S batteries.

Solution-assisted all-oxide-cathode formation method allows reduction of processing temperature without using sintering additives, demonstrating the lowest interfacial impedance in garnet-based solid-state lithium batteries.

An in situ NMR study of Li deposition and the SEI on Li metal. Isotope exchange measurements reveal the fast transport properties in the SEI formed with FEC and the accelerated SEI formation rate, in part explaining the homogeneous electrodeposition using FEC additives.

Careful rheological design and electrochemical optimization of conductive ZnO and Ni(OH)₂ active semi-solid flowable electrodes is essential to achieve a high-energy and high-power Zn–Ni flow battery.

Ga-doped LiNiO₂ is reinvestigated. Ga is suggested to occupy the Li site. Detailed structural and electrochemical characterization is provided.

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs), as a green alternative technology, exhibit great potential to recycle valuable elements from spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs).

Solvometallurgical recovery of cobalt from lithium cobalt oxide by using a choline chloride–citric acid deep eutectic solvent (DES) in presence of aluminium and copper current collectors.

We show that zinc (Zn) batteries are the lowest cost and most energy dense of rechargeable batteries that rely on abundant, low-risk elements. We advance Zn batteries with a green synthesis that lowers the cost and boosts the performance of rechargeable Zn electrodes.

Nanoscale Al₂O₃ coating by an atomic layer deposition technique enabled safe and dendrite-free Zn anodes for rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries.

Novel nanostructured non-redox-metal potassium metal–organic framework, [C₇H₃KNO₄]_n, as an effective organic anode for long-cycle life OPIBs.

The electrocatalytic activity of the N-rGO/Co₃O₄ nanocomposites was tuned towards highly efficient bifunctional air-cathodes for Zn–Air batteries.

Developing novel gold nanoclusters as an electrocatalyst can facilitate a completely reversible reaction between S and Na, achieving advanced high-energy-density room-temperature sodium–sulfur batteries.

We report a novel succinonitrile (SN)-based electrolyte SN–DLi–FEC (SN–LiTFSI–LiODFB–FEC), which shows excellent compatibility with the Li-metal anode.

Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO)-based polymer electrolytes are extensively investigated, and they have rapidly developed in all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) over recent years for their good interface contact with electrodes, easy shaping and decent flexibility.

Cu₂Nb₃₄O₇₈ nanowires present a high charge capacity of 279.8 mA h g⁻¹ with a Coulombic efficiency of 89.6% based on Nb⁵⁺/Nb⁴⁺, Nb⁴⁺/Nb³⁺ and Cu²⁺/Cu⁺ redox couples.

NH₄V₃O₈·0.5H₂O nanobelts are synthesized by a low-temperature hydrothermal process, and exhibit high electrochemical performance in ARZIBs.