Batteries articles from across Nature Portfolio

Nickel-rich lithium-ion cathode materials face severe structural and interfacial instabilities when cycled at high potentials and high degrees of delithiation. Now, a LiNi_0.8Mn_0.1Co_0.1O₂ material with a complementary composition and structure gradient, composed of an ordered, layered Co-poor bulk phase and a Co-enriched disordered rock-salt surface layer, is shown to efficiently address the issues.

Improving battery performance requires the careful design of electrolytes. Now, high-performing lithium battery electrolytes can be produced from non-solvating solvents by using a molecular-docking solvation strategy that takes advantage of intermolecular interactions between solvents to precisely control the solvation dynamics of lithium ions.

In battery research, the demand for public datasets to ensure transparent analyses of battery health is growing. Jan Figgener et al. meet this need with an 8-year study of 21 lithium-ion systems in Germany, generating a dataset of 14 billion data points that offers valuable insights into battery longevity for home storage.

Here, the authors propose a superlattice cathode with co-(de)intercalation chemistry in a rechargeable aluminum ion battery. The proposed cathode exceeds the theoretical capacity for conventional oxide electrodes with single cation shuttling.

Inorganic lithium superionic conductors are central to the development of solid-state batteries, but the availability of practical superionic conductors is still limited. This Review highlights structural and chemical strategies to enhance ionic conductivity and maps a strategic approach to discover, design and optimize fast lithium-ion conductors for safe and high-energy-density all-solid-state batteries.

The performance of solid-state batteries is affected by stress responses of their complex microstructure to volume changes from Li⁺ intercalation. Here, authors present a chemo-mechanical model to study the impact of grain-level chemo-mechanics on the degradation of composite positive electrodes.

A bottleneck in solid-state batteries is the solid electrode-electrolyte interface being maintained over repeated cycles. Here, the authors use an epitaxial model system to probe and control the interface in real time.

Nickel-rich lithium-ion cathode materials face severe structural and interfacial instabilities when cycled at high potentials and high degrees of delithiation. Now, a LiNi_0.8Mn_0.1Co_0.1O₂ material with a complementary composition and structure gradient, composed of an ordered, layered Co-poor bulk phase and a Co-enriched disordered rock-salt surface layer, is shown to efficiently address the issues.

An article in Science Robotics presents a high-energy-density, picolitre-sized battery.

Improving battery performance requires the careful design of electrolytes. Now, high-performing lithium battery electrolytes can be produced from non-solvating solvents by using a molecular-docking solvation strategy that takes advantage of intermolecular interactions between solvents to precisely control the solvation dynamics of lithium ions.

A protocol is demonstrated for the fabrication of dense and defect-free graphene current collectors on the hundred-meter scale. Owing to their high thermal conductivity and dense structures, these current collectors effectively prevent thermal runaway in high-energy pouch cells through the dissipation of localized heat and circumvention of undesirable side reactions, enhancing battery safety.

Battery researchers are struggling to design viable all-solid batteries, which promise enhanced safety but are currently achievable only at a high cost and with complex cell designs. Now a study on a sulfide-based cathode material demonstrates that a radical redesign of the electrode using 100% active material may help address the issue.

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries are attractive due to their low cost, environmental friendliness, and exceptional performance, but the latter remains poorly understood. Now, a fast catalytic step involved in oxygen redox catalysis is shown to contribute to capacity at a high rate.