The tremendous improvement in performance and cost of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have made them the technology of choice for electrical energy storage. While established battery chemistries and cell architectures for Li-ion batteries achieve good power and energy density, LIBs are unlikely to meet all the performance, cost, and scaling targets required for energy storage, in particular, in large-scale applications such as electrified transportation and grids. The demand to further reduce cost and/or increase energy density, as well as the growing concern related to natural resource needs for Li-ion have accelerated the investigation of so-called "beyond Li-ion" technologies. In this review, we will discuss the recent achievements, challenges, and opportunities of four important "beyond Li-ion" technologies: Na-ion batteries, K-ion batteries, all-solid-state batteries, and multivalent batteries. The fundamental science behind the challenges, and potential solutions toward the goals of a low-cost and/or high-energy-density future, are discussed in detail for each technology. While it is unlikely that any given new technology will fully replace Li-ion in the near future, "beyond Li-ion" technologies should be thought of as opportunities for energy storage to grow into mid/large-scale applications.

Cation-disordered rocksalt-type high-entropy cathodes for Li-ion batteries.

research on lithium-ion battery cathodes has been largely dominated by layered rock salt materials in the Li x (Ni-Mn-Co-Al) 2−x O 2 (NMCA) compositional space, [3,4] in which redox activity is limited to Co and Ni. Cobalt in particular is expensive and relatively scarce compared to other 3d transition metals, such as Fe or Mn. [1,3,5] The fact that the cathode structure has to be layered and remain layered upon cycling greatly restricts the changes which can be made to NMCA-type rock salt chemistries.Recent progress in the development of Li percolation theory for rock salt compounds, in which Li transport still takes place even when the cations are disordered, has greatly enlarged the design space for cathode materials. [6,7] Lifting the requirement that cations form an ordered (layered) structure enables the use of various transition metal (TM) redox centers, including Mn 3+ /Mn 4+ , [8,9] Mn 2+ /Mn 4+ , [5,10] Cr 3+ /Cr 5+ , [6,11] Mo 3+ /Mo 6+ , [12] and V 3+ /V 5+ . [11,13] Because these compounds need Li excess to achieve Li percolation, [6,7] they typically also contain high valent charge compensators, such as Nb 5+ , [8,9] Sb 5+ , [14] Mo 6+ , [15,16] and Ti 4+ . [16][17][18] In addition, fluorine substitution is facile inThe recent discovery of Li-excess cation-disordered rock salt cathodes has greatly enlarged the design space of Li-ion cathode materials. Evidence of facile lattice fluorine substitution for oxygen has further provided an important strategy to enhance the cycling performance of this class of materials. Here, a group of Mn 3+ -Nb 5+ -based cation-disordered oxyfluorides, Li 1.2 Mn 3+ 0.6+0.5x Nb 5+ 0.2−0.5x O 2−x F x (x = 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2) is investigated and it is found that fluorination improves capacity retention in a very significant way. Combining spectroscopic methods and ab initio calculations, it is demonstrated that the increased transition-metal redox (Mn 3+ /Mn 4+ ) capacity that can be accommodated upon fluorination reduces reliance on oxygen redox and leads to less oxygen loss, as evidenced by differential electrochemical mass spectroscopy measurements. Furthermore, it is found that fluorine substitution also decreases the Mn 3+ -induced Jahn-Teller distortion, leading to an orbital rearrangement that further increases the contribution of Mn-redox capacity to the overall capacity.

We have investigated the phase transformation of bulk MoS2 crystals from the metastable metallic 1T/1T' phase to the thermodynamically stable semiconducting 2H phase. The metastable 1T/1T' material was prepared by Li intercalation and deintercalation. The thermally driven kinetics of the phase transformation were studied with in situ Raman and optical reflection spectroscopies and yield an activation energy of 400 ± 60 meV (38 ± 6 kJ/mol). We calculate the expected minimum energy pathways for these transformations using DFT methods. The experimental activation energy corresponds approximately to the theoretical barrier for a single formula unit, suggesting that nucleation of the phase transformation is quite local. We also report that femtosecond laser writing converts 1T/1T' to 2H in a single laser pass. The mechanisms for the phase transformation are discussed.

2 Mn-based Li-excess cation-disordered rocksalt (DRX) oxyfluorides are promising candidates for 3 next-generation rechargeable battery cathodes owing to their large energy densities, earth-4 abundance of Mn and potential for low cost. In this work, we synthesized and electrochemically 5 tested four representative compositions in the Li-Mn-OF DRX chemical space with various Li 6 and F content. 7 material with high Li-excess (1.3333 per formula unit, Li x Mn2x O2y F y) and moderate fluorination 8 9 Higher fluorination (0.6667 per formula unit) at moderate Li-excess (1.25 per formula unit) can Wh/kg) initial capacity (specific energy) with more than 85% retained after 30 cycles. We show that the Li-site distribution (i.e., Li percolation properties) plays a more important role than the metal-redox capacity in determining the initial capacity, whereas the metal-redox capacity is more closely related to the cyclability of the materials. We apply these insights and generate a capacity map of the Li-Mn-OF chemical space, Li x Mn2x O2y F y (1.167 ≤ x ≤ 1.333, 0 ≤ y ≤ 0.667), which predicts both the accessible Li capacity and Mn-redox capacity. This map allows to design compounds which balance high capacity with good cyclability. activate Mn 2+ /Mn 4+ redox and there by balance capacity with cycle life, achieving 256 mAh/g (822 (0.3333 per formula unit) achieves 349 mAh g-1 initial capacity and 1068 Wh kg-1 specific energy. While all compositions tested achieve higher than 200 mAh g-1 initial capacity, the

Fluorine substitution is a critical enabler for improving the cycle life and energy density of disordered rocksalt (DRX) Li‐ion battery cathode materials which offer prospects for high energy density cathodes, without the reliance on limited mineral resources. Due to the strong Li–F interaction, fluorine also is expected to modify the short‐range cation order in these materials which is critical for Li‐ion transport. In this work, density functional theory and Monte Carlo simulations are combined to investigate the impact of Li–F short‐range ordering on the formation of Li percolation and diffusion in DRX materials. The modeling reveals that F substitution is always beneficial at sufficiently high concentrations and can, surprisingly, even facilitate percolation in compounds without Li excess, giving them the ability to incorporate more transition metal redox capacity and thereby higher energy density. It is found that for F levels below 15%, its effect can be beneficial or disadvantageous depending on the intrinsic short‐range order in the unfluorinated oxide, while for high fluorination levels the effects are always beneficial. Using extensive simulations, a map is also presented showing the trade‐off between transition‐metal capacity, Li‐transport, and synthetic accessibility, and two of the more extreme predictions are experimentally confirmed.

In the synthesis of inorganic materials, reactions often yield non-equilibrium kinetic byproducts instead of the thermodynamic equilibrium phase. Understanding the competition between thermodynamics and kinetics is fundamental towards the rational synthesis of target materials. Here, we use in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction to investigate the multistage crystallization pathways of the important two-layer (P2) sodium oxides Na 0.67 MO 2 (M = Co, Mn). We observe a series of fast non-equilibrium phase transformations through metastable three-layer O3, O3' and P3 phases before formation of the equilibrium two-layer P2 polymorph. We present a theoretical framework to rationalize the observed phase progression, demonstrating that even though P2 is the equilibrium phase, compositionally-unconstrained reactions between powder precursors favor the formation of non-equilibrium three-layered intermediates. These insights can guide the choice of precursors and parameters employed in the solidstate synthesis of ceramic materials, and constitutes a step forward in unraveling the complex interplay between thermodynamics and kinetics during materials synthesis.

Advances in solid-state batteries have primarily been driven by the discovery of superionic conducting structural frameworks that function as solid electrolytes. We demonstrate the ability of high-entropy metal cation mixes to improve ionic conductivity in a compound, which leads to less reliance on specific chemistries and enhanced synthesizability. The local distortions introduced into high-entropy materials give rise to an overlapping distribution of site energies for the alkali ions so that they can percolate with low activation energy. Experiments verify that high entropy leads to orders-of-magnitude higher ionic conductivities in lithium (Li)–sodium (Na) superionic conductor (Li-NASICON), sodium NASICON (Na-NASICON), and Li-garnet structures, even at fixed alkali content. We provide insight into selecting the optimal distortion and designing high-entropy superionic conductors across the vast compositional space.