Magnesium: a sustainable approach for high energy batteries (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Rechargeable magnesium (Mg) batteries are considered as potential post lithium batteries with different application. Due to natural abundance of Mg, batteries based on Mg metal as an anode are considered as sustainable batteries which with high specific theoretical capacity (2205 mAh/g and 3.832 mAh/cm3) and with a reduction potential of −2.356 V versus standard hydrogen electrode (NHE) puts a lot of motivation for their exploration and application. Metallic magnesium is known as a highly passivating metal and it requires a special attention to the electrolyte development. Recent progress in the field of non-nucleophilic electrolytes with high oxidative stability opens the possibility to employ these types of electrolytes with redox active organic materials where weak intermolecular forces enable the reversible electrochemical interaction of Mg cations coupled with fast diffusion. Organic polymers can be considered as a sustainable counterpart in the combination with Mg metal and that represents a robust approach towards sustainable Mg batteries with high power and good cycling properties. Another, even more attractive combination is magnesium sulfur battery, which is a combination of two highly abundant elements and it can provide higher energy density compared to current Li-ion batteries. Finally, problems related to high voltage insertion materials will be discussed within presentation.