High-Entropy Materials Chemistry for Electrochemical Energy Storage

The pursuit of high-energy-density batteries that tolerate extreme conditions and use earth-abundant elements is fundamentally constrained by the slow pace of materials innovation. By enabling broad compositional tuning and property optimization, the high-entropy strategy defines a new design paradigm for battery materials chemistry. High-entropy concepts were applied to various battery components, ranging from solids to liquids. However, this field is still in its infancy, requiring substantial groundwork to address the ambiguous definitions, unclear or even contradictory performance-enhancement mechanisms, and a lack of rational design principles. Therefore, a comprehensive review summarizing current issues and future developments across the entire battery system is urgently needed. It begins with the fundamental principles of high-entropy materials chemistry (HEMC) and their applications in batteries, followed by a systematic discussion of entropy-driven mechanisms in both solid and liquid phases. An integrated perspective on the challenges and opportunities across the full battery system is presented. Furthermore, we highlight recent advances in synthesis and characterization techniques, multiscale computation, and the integration of artificial intelligence in accelerating the development of HEMC in batteries.