The Rechargeable Aluminum Battery: Opportunities and Challenges.

Aluminum battery systems are considered as one of the supplementaries for current lithium batteries due to the low cost and high volumetric capacity of aluminum metal, and the high safety of the whole battery system. Fox example, the use of ionic liquid electrolytes leading AlCl4- existing instead of Al3+, the different intercalation reagents, the sluggish solid diffusion process and the cycling failure mode in aluminum batteries all need to be thoroughly explored. In order to provide a good understanding of the opportunities and challenges of the newly-emerging aluminum batteries, this review discusses the reaction mechanisms and the difficulties caused by the trivalent reaction medium in electrolytes, electrodes and electrode-electrolyte interfaces. It is hoped that the review will stimulate scientists and engineers to develop more reliable aluminum batteries.