Building Smarter Aqueous Batteries

Amidst the global trend of advancing renewable energies toward carbon neutrality, energy storage becomes increasingly critical due to the intermittency of renewables. As an alternative to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), aqueous batteries have received growing attention for large-scale energy storage due to their economical and safe features. Despite the fruitful achievements at the material level, the reliability and lifetime of aqueous batteries are still far from satisfactory. Alike LIBs, integrating smartness is essential for more reliable and long-life aqueous batteries via operando monitoring and automatic response to extreme abuses. In this review, recent advances in sensing techniques and multifunctional battery-sensor systems together with self-healing methods in aqueous batteries is summarized. The significant role of artificial intelligence in designing and optimizing aqueous batteries with high efficiency is also highlighted. Ultimately, it is extrapolated toward the future and present the humble perspective for building smarter aqueous batteries.