Pre-intercalation: A valuable approach for the improvement of post-lithium battery materials
Charlie Nason, Yang Xu
Abstract
With the growing concern around the sustainability and supply of lithium, the need for alternative rechargeable energy storage technologies has become ever more pressing. Sodium-, potassium-, magnesium-, and zinc-ion batteries are fast becoming viable alternatives but are held back by capacity, rate and stability problems that have not developed comparably to lithium-ion batteries. To overcome these shortcomings and reduce the reliance on lithium, electrode materials used for these post-lithium batteries must be improved. Pre-intercalation of foreign species into the lattice of promising electrode materials can enhance their electrochemical performance in comparison to the un-pre-intercalated counterparts, closing the performance gap with lithium-ion batteries. This review article covers the common methods of pre-intercalating foreign species into electrode materials, the resulting structural effects and the improvements that are observed in the materials’ electrochemical performance for post-lithium batteries. Timely and impactful work reported previously are summarised as examples of these improvements, demonstrating the value and ever-growing importance of pre-intercalation in today’s battery landscape.