Post-lithium-ion battery cell production and its compatibility with lithium-ion cell production infrastructure

Lithium-ion batteries are currently the most advanced electrochemical energy storage technology due to a favourable balance of performance and cost properties. Driven by forecasted growth of the electric vehicles market, the cell production capacity for this technology is continuously being scaled up. However, the demand for better performance, particularly higher energy densities and/or lower costs, has triggered research into post-lithium-ion technologies such as solid-state lithium metal, lithium–sulfur and lithium–air batteries as well as post-lithium technologies such as sodium-ion batteries. Currently, these technologies are being intensively studied with regard to material chemistry and cell design. In this Review, we expand on the current knowledge in this field. Starting with a market outlook and an analysis of technological differences, we discuss the manufacturing processes of these technologies. For each technology, we describe anode production, cathode production, cell assembly and conditioning. We then evaluate the manufacturing compatibility of each technology with the lithium-ion production infrastructure and discuss the implications for processing costs. Tremendous research progress has been made in the development of post-lithium-ion batteries (PLIBs), yet there is little discussion on the manufacturing of these upcoming technologies. In this Review, the authors survey the current production status of several representative PLIBs and offer an industrial-scale manufacturing outlook.