Anodes for magnesium batteries: State-of-the-art and prospects. A viewpoint

There is an increasing demand for rechargeable batteries in high-performance energy storage systems. The current dominating Li ion batteries are limited by price fluctuations of resources, resource availability, as well as their theoretical capacities so that the community is exploring alternative battery chemistries to expand the portfolio of available battery types. As a promising multivalent battery type, rechargeable magnesium batteries (RMBs) have attracted increasing attention because of high safety, high volumetric energy density, and low cost due to the high geological abundance of Mg. The high theoretical energy density comes from the fact that Mg can be used in undiluted form as a metal anode in RMB. This anode can provide high coulombic efficiency without dendrite formation upon charging with selected electrolytes and under reasonable conditions [1]. However, despite these benefits, the implementation of magnesium batteries has been obstructed by several significant roadblocks.