The ever-growing demand for advanced energy storage devices in portable electronics, electric vehicles and large scale power grids has triggered intensive research efforts over the past decade on lithium and sodium batteries. The key to improve their electrochemical performance and enhance the service safety lies in the development of advanced electrode, electrolyte, and auxiliary materials. Ionic liquids (ILs) are liquids consisting entirely of ions near room temperature, and are characterized by many unique properties such as ultralow volatility, high ionic conductivity, good thermal stability, low flammability, a wide electrochemical window, and tunable polarity and basicity/acidity. These properties create the possibilities of designing batteries with excellent safety, high energy/power density and long-term stability, and also provide better ways to synthesize known materials. IL-derived materials, such as poly(ionic liquids), ionogels and IL-tethered nanoparticles, retain most of the characteristics of ILs while being endowed with other favourable features, and thus they have received a great deal of attention as well. This review provides a comprehensive review of the various applications of ILs and derived materials in lithium and sodium batteries including Li/Na-ion, dual-ion, Li/Na-S and Li/Na-air (O2) batteries, with a particular emphasis on recent advances in the literature. Their unique characteristics enable them to serve as advanced resources, medium, or ingredient for almost all the components of batteries, including electrodes, liquid electrolytes, solid electrolytes, artificial solid-electrolyte interphases, and current collectors. Some thoughts on the emerging challenges and opportunities are also presented in this review for further development.

Ionic liquids and derived materials for lithium and sodium batteries

Progress and Expectation of Atmospheric Water Harvesting

United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center)

Condensation heat transfer on superhydrophobic surfaces

Review of Emerging Concepts in SEI Analysis and Artificial SEI Membranes for Lithium, Sodium, and Potassium Metal Battery Anodes

Recent advancement of SiOx based anodes for lithium-ion batteries

Thermal ground planes, or planar heat pipes, can provide highly effective heat transfer by utilizing phase change of an encapsulated fluid. In this article, a flexible thermal ground plane (FTGP) was fabricated using polymer materials. Kapton was employed as a casing material while micropatterned SU-8 was used to provide both a liquid wicking structure and pillars to support the casing over a vapor core. An ultra-thin TiO2 film was deposited over the SU-8 and Kapton via atomic layer deposition, which acted as both a moisture barrier and a hydrophilic coating on polymer surfaces. The assembled FTGP has a thickness of 0.30 mm, an active area of 20 mm×60 mm, heater area of 20 mm× 10 mm, and can operate with a heat load up to 9.54 W, with an effective thermal conductivity up to 541 W/(m K).

Microfabricated ultra-thin all-polymer thermal ground planes

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/2.0991914jes/pdf

Evolution of Dead Lithium Growth in Lithium Metal Batteries: Experimentally Validated Model of the Apparent Capacity Loss

Ultra-thin thermal ground planes (TGPs), which utilize phase-change heat transfer to achieve high performance heat spreading, are of great importance for thermal management of thickness-constrained microsystems. However, both fabrication challenges and performance limitation are encountered when the TGP thickness reduces to $10~\text {cm} \times 5$ cm with a total thickness of 0.28 mm. This TGP can operate with a heat load up to 7.9 W over a heating area of $8~\text {mm} \times 8$ mm, rendering an effective thermal conductivity of 1398 W/m-K. [2016-0097]

Development of Ultra-Thin Thermal Ground Planes by Using Stainless-Steel Mesh as Wicking Structure

Optimized performance of silicon-ionic- liquid lithium-ion batteries through the implementation of a new electrode-microgeometry. The incorporation of 1D silicon nanowires into the cyclized-polyacrylonitrile-based electrode-architecture allows for greatly improved active material utilization, higher rate capabilities, and reduced interfacial reactions.

Optimized Silicon Electrode Architecture, Interface, and Microgeometry for Next-Generation Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Embodiments described in this disclosure include a heat spreader. The heat spreader may include a first layer having a thickness less than about 300 microns; a plurality of pillars disposed on the first layer and arrayed in a pattern, wherein each of the plurality of pillars have a height of less than 100 microns; a second layer having a thickness of less than 200 microns, wherein a portion of the first layer and a portion of the second layer are sealed together; and a vacuum chamber formed between the first layer and the second layer and within which the plurality of pillars are disposed.

Shanshan Xu

Papers

Microfabricated ultra-thin all-polymer thermal ground planes

Evolution of Dead Lithium Growth in Lithium Metal Batteries: Experimentally Validated Model of the Apparent Capacity Loss

Development of Ultra-Thin Thermal Ground Planes by Using Stainless-Steel Mesh as Wicking Structure

Optimized Silicon Electrode Architecture, Interface, and Microgeometry for Next-Generation Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Vacuum-enhanced heat spreader