Prospects for magnesium ion batteries: A compreshensive materials review

The current scenario emphasizes strongly on environmentally benign and unassailable energy storage technology for sustainability. Even though several such devices are known, Lithium ion battery (LIB) technology has primarily dominated the field of energy storage. Despite the myriad of well-known advantages of LIBs there remain several performance imitations such as low power density especially at high rates, safety issues due to thermal runway and associated problems, high cost due to resource limitations. Magnesium ion batteries (MIBs) have since emerged as one of the promising battery technologies due to their low cost and environmentally acceptable nature that can potentially pave the way for large grid scale productions. Unlike lithium metal, Mg has a very little tendency to form dendrites that cause eventual short-circuit and concomitant safety issues. MIBs have been reported to possess a volumetric capacity of 3833 mAh cc⁻¹, which is nearly twice the amount for LIBs (2046 mAh cc⁻¹). In addition, the bivalency, abundance, light weight, and chemical stability makes these battery systems very attractive. The target of this review is focused on synthetic methods for the enhancement and subsequent commercialization of MIBs. Herein, a detailed review of chemistry, structure and performance of MIB-based anodes, cathodes, electrolytes, separators and binders is surveyed along with the future perspectives.