Nanotechnology. 2013 Oct 25;24(42):424004. doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/24/42/424004. Epub 2013 Sep 25.

Hierarchically structured materials for lithium batteries.

Nanotechnology

Jie Xiao, Jianming Zheng, Xiaolin Li, Yuyan Shao, Ji-Guang Zhang

PMID: 24067410 DOI: 10.1088/0957-4484/24/42/424004

Abstract

The lithium-ion battery (LIB) is one of the most promising power sources to be deployed in electric vehicles, including solely battery powered vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and hybrid electric vehicles. With the increasing demand for devices of high-energy densities (>500 Wh kg(-1)), new energy storage systems, such as lithium-oxygen (Li-O2) batteries and other emerging systems beyond the conventional LIB, have attracted worldwide interest for both transportation and grid energy storage applications in recent years. It is well known that the electrochemical performance of these energy storage systems depends not only on the composition of the materials, but also on the structure of the electrode materials used in the batteries. Although the desired performance characteristics of batteries often have conflicting requirements with the micro/nano-structure of electrodes, hierarchically designed electrodes can be tailored to satisfy these conflicting requirements. This work will review hierarchically structured materials that have been successfully used in LIB and Li-O2 batteries. Our goal is to elucidate (1) how to realize the full potential of energy materials through the manipulation of morphologies, and (2) how the hierarchical structure benefits the charge transport, promotes the interfacial properties and prolongs the electrode stability and battery lifetime.

Publication Types

• Journal Article
• Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.