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POST LI-ION BATTERIES

Empowering magnesium

Nature Energy volume 5, pages 945–946 (2020)Cite this article

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Mg-ion diffusion in cathodes and dissociation in electrolyte complexes are sluggish processes that hinder the development of Mg batteries. Now, a new design of both the cathode and the electrolyte drastically improves the kinetics of these processes, leading to a high-power Mg battery.

Benefiting from its abundance and high volumetric capacity (3833 mAh cm–3 for Mg versus 2046 mAh cm–3 for Li), metallic Mg is an important anode choice for post Li-ion batteries. However, the high ionic potential of Mg2+ cations renders their diffusion in cathodes sluggish. It also brings issues of strong ion association in electrolytes, which leads to insertion of solvent molecules or anions, along with Mg2+, into cathodes. Moreover, efficient utilization of metallic Mg is hampered by the low ionic conductivity of the electrolyte and poor plating–stripping efficiency, especially when used at high current densities. The overall result is that Mg batteries suffer from practically low power and energy performances1. Although some studies have reported fast kinetics for Mg batteries by storing MgCl+ rather than Mg2+, this was achieved at the expense of energy density and cycle-life2. Despite many efforts so far, state-of-the-art Mg batteries still cannot guarantee practically appealing performances3.

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Fig. 1: The Mg–PTO battery.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular Chemistry, Materials and Catalysis, Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Jiande Wang & Alexandru Vlad

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  1. Jiande Wang
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  2. Alexandru Vlad
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Correspondence to Alexandru Vlad.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Wang, J., Vlad, A. Empowering magnesium. Nat Energy 5, 945–946 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00744-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00744-y

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