Lithium-ion batteries – Current state of the art and anticipated developments

Lithium-ion batteries are the state-of-the-art electrochemical energy storage technology for mobile electronic devices and electric vehicles. Accordingly, they have attracted a continuously increasing interest in academia and industry, which has led to a steady improvement in energy and power density, while the costs have decreased at even faster pace. Important questions, though, are, to which extent and how (fast) the performance can be further improved, and how the envisioned goal of truly sustainable energy storage can be realized. Herein, we combine a comprehensive review of important findings and developments in this field that have enabled their tremendous success with an overview of very recent trends concerning the active materials for the negative and positive electrode as well as the electrolyte. Moreover, we critically discuss current and anticipated electrode fabrication processes, as well as an essential prerequisite for “greener” batteries – the recycling. In each of these chapters, we eventually summarize important remaining challenges and propose potential directions for further improvement. Finally, we conclude this article with a brief summary of the performance metrics of commercial lithium-ion cells and a few thoughts towards the future development of this technology including several key performance indicators for the mid-term to long-term future.