Recent Progress in Aqueous Ammonium-Ion Batteries

Batteries using a water-based electrolyte have the potential to be safer, more durable, less prone to thermal runaways, and less costly than current lithium batteries using an organic solvent. Among the possible aqueous battery options, ammonium-ion batteries (AIBs) are very appealing because the base materials are light, safe, inexpensive, and widely available. This review gives a concise and useful survey of recent progress on emerging AIBs, starting with a brief overview of AIBs, followed by cathode materials, anode materials, electrolytes, and various devices based on ammonium-ion storage. Aside from summarizing the most updated electrodes/electrolytes in AIBs, this review highlights fundamental mechanistic studies in AIBs and state-of-the art applications of ammonium-ion storage. The present work reviews various theoretical efforts and the spectrum studies that have been used to explore ionic transport kinetics, electrolyte structure, solvation behavior of ammonium ions, and the intercalation mechanism in the host structure. Furthermore, diverse applications of ammonium-ion storage apart from aqueous AIBs are discussed, including flexible AIBs, AIBs that can operate across a wide temperature range, ammonium-ion supercapacitors, and battery–supercapacitor hybrid devices. Finally, the review is concluded with perspectives of AIBs, challenges remaining in the field, and possible research directions to address these challenges to boost the performance of AIBs for real-world practical applications.