Researchers must find a sustainable way of providing the power our modern lifestyles demand.

Building better batteries

Electrochemical capacitors, also called supercapacitors, store energy using either ion adsorption (electrochemical double layer capacitors) or fast surface redox reactions (pseudo-capacitors). They can complement or replace batteries in electrical energy storage and harvesting applications, when high power delivery or uptake is needed. A notable improvement in performance has been achieved through recent advances in understanding charge storage mechanisms and the development of advanced nanostructured materials. The discovery that ion desolvation occurs in pores smaller than the solvated ions has led to higher capacitance for electrochemical double layer capacitors using carbon electrodes with subnanometre pores, and opened the door to designing high-energy density devices using a variety of electrolytes. Combination of pseudo-capacitive nanomaterials, including oxides, nitrides and polymers, with the latest generation of nanostructured lithium electrodes has brought the energy density of electrochemical capacitors closer to that of batteries. The use of carbon nanotubes has further advanced micro-electrochemical capacitors, enabling flexible and adaptable devices to be made. Mathematical modelling and simulation will be the key to success in designing tomorrow's high-energy and high-power devices.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02417326/document

Materials for electrochemical capacitors

Energy storage is more important today than at any time in human history. Future generations of rechargeable lithium batteries are required to power portable electronic devices (cellphones, laptop computers etc.), store electricity from renewable sources, and as a vital component in new hybrid electric vehicles. To achieve the increase in energy and power density essential to meet the future challenges of energy storage, new materials chemistry, and especially new nanomaterials chemistry, is essential. We must find ways of synthesizing new nanomaterials with new properties or combinations of properties, for use as electrodes and electrolytes in lithium batteries. Herein we review some of the recent scientific advances in nanomaterials, and especially in nanostructured materials, for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

Nanomaterials for rechargeable lithium batteries

Molecular self-assembly is the spontaneous association of molecules under equilibrium conditions into stable, structurally well-defined aggregates joined by noncovalent bonds. Molecular self-assembly is ubiquitous in biological systems and underlies the formation of a wide variety of complex biological structures. Understanding self-assembly and the associated noncovalent interactions that connect complementary interacting molecular surfaces in biological aggregates is a central concern in structural biochemistry. Self-assembly is also emerging as a new strategy in chemical synthesis, with the potential of generating nonbiological structures with dimensions of 1 to 10(2) nanometers (with molecular weights of 10(4) to 10(10) daltons). Structures in the upper part of this range of sizes are presently inaccessible through chemical synthesis, and the ability to prepare them would open a route to structures comparable in size (and perhaps complementary in function) to those that can be prepared by microlithography and other techniques of microfabrication.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/254/5036/1312.full.pdf

Molecular self-assembly and nanochemistry: a chemical strategy for the synthesis of nanostructures.

Molecular self-assembly and nanochemistry: A chemical strategy for the synthesis of nanostructures

The worldwide thirst for portable consumer electronics in the 1990s had an enormous impact on portable power. Lithium ion batteries, in which lithium ions shuttle between an insertion cathode (e.g., LiCoO2) and an insertion anode (e.g., carbon), emerged as the power source of choice for the highperformance rechargeable-battery market. The performance advantages were so significant that lithium ion batteries not only replaced Ni-Cd batteries but left the purported successor technology, nickel-metal hydride, in its wake.1 The thick metal plates of * To whom correspondence should be addressed. J.W.L: e-mail, jwlong@ccs.nrl.navy.mil; telephone, (+1)202-404-8697. B.D.: e-mail, bdunn@ucla.edu; telephone, (+1)310-825-1519. D.R.R.: e-mail, rolison@nrl.navy.mil; telephone, (+1)202-767-3617. H.S.W.: e-mail, white@chem.utah.edu; telephone, (+1)810-585-6256. † Naval Research Laboratory. ‡ UCLA. § University of Utah. 4463 Chem. Rev. 2004, 104, 4463−4492

Three-dimensional battery architectures.

The next generation of high-performance batteries should include alternative chemistries that are inherently safer to operate than nonaqueous lithium-based batteries. Aqueous zinc-based batteries can answer that challenge because monolithic zinc sponge anodes can be cycled in nickel–zinc alkaline cells hundreds to thousands of times without undergoing passivation or macroscale dendrite formation. We demonstrate that the three-dimensional (3D) zinc form-factor elevates the performance of nickel–zinc alkaline cells in three fields of use: (i) >90% theoretical depth of discharge (DODZn) in primary (single-use) cells, (ii) >100 high-rate cycles at 40% DODZn at lithium-ion–commensurate specific energy, and (iii) the tens of thousands of power-demanding duty cycles required for start-stop microhybrid vehicles.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/356/6336/415.full.pdf

Rechargeable nickel–3D zinc batteries: An energy-dense, safer alternative to lithium-ion

Zeolite-modified electrodes and electrode-modified zeolites

Three‐Dimensional Battery Architectures

Ultraporous aperiodic solids, such as aerogels and ambigels, are sol-gel-derived equivalents of architectures. The walls are defined by the nanoscopic, covalently bonded solid network of the gel. The vast open, interconnected space characteristic of a building is represented by the three-dimensionally continuous nanoscopic pore network. We discuss how an architectural construct serves as a powerful metaphor that guides the chemist in the design of aerogel-like nanoarchitectures and in their physical and chemical transformation into multifunctional objects that yield high performance for rate-critical applications.

Debra R. Rolison

Papers

Three-dimensional battery architectures.

Rechargeable nickel–3D zinc batteries: An energy-dense, safer alternative to lithium-ion

Zeolite-modified electrodes and electrode-modified zeolites

Three‐Dimensional Battery Architectures

Architectural design, interior decoration, and three-dimensional plumbing en route to multifunctional nanoarchitectures.