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Nanoengineering of non-aqueous liquid electrolyte solutions for future lithium metal batteries

Nature Nanotechnology (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Research and development of non-aqueous electrolyte solutions are essential for practical advancement towards the production of high-energy lithium metal batteries (LMBs). An ideal LMB electrolyte solution should enable highly efficient, uniform and prolonged lithium metal plating and stripping, preserve the electrodes’ electro(chemo)mechanical properties and ensure compatibility with all cell components. However, despite extensive research efforts, scientists have yet to achieve an electrolyte design that meets these requirements simultaneously. Here, by examining the nanoengineering aspects of various non-aqueous electrolyte solution designs, we elucidate the understanding of the nanoscale physicochemical and electrochemical processes taking place in LMBs, which are mainly governed by the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of the electrolyte system. We also explore emerging research directions and propose an accelerated, iterative framework that integrates nanoengineering principles with machine learning, high-throughput computation and experimentation to facilitate the development of next-generation non-aqueous electrolyte solutions for practical LMBs.

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Fig. 1: Chronological development of LMBs.
Fig. 2: Interplay between essential electrolyte properties.
Fig. 3: SEI on lithium metal and origin of mossy-like Li deposition.
Fig. 4: Historical evolution of electrolyte concepts to enable efficient Li stripping/plating.
Fig. 5: Characterization techniques for LMBs.
Fig. 6: Iterative process for accelerated electrolyte development.

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Acknowledgements

This Review is the result of a concerted approach within the LILLINT II research project, jointly funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR). A.S. and R.K. acknowledge the financial support of the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO), under the Advanced Battery Materials Research (BMR) Program, of the US DOE under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231. R.A., C.-C.S., X.L. and K.A. acknowledge the US DOE, VTO. Argonne National Laboratory is operated by the DOE Office of Science by UChicago Argonne, LLC, under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. P.B.B. and J.M.S. acknowledge the US DOE through the US–Germany Cooperation on Energy Storage under contract DE-AC02-05CH11357. Computational resources from the Texas A&M University High Performance Research Computing are gratefully acknowledged. The work performed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) was supported by the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, VTO, US DOE and the Advanced BMR Program and the US–Germany Cooperation on Energy Storage with contracts DE-LC-000L072 (C.W.) and DE-AC05-76RL01830 (W.X.). Y.S.-H., C.O.P.-R. and D.W. acknowledge the financial support of the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, VTO, under the Advanced BMR Program of the US DOE under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357, subcontract 9F-60231. J.L. and F.S. thank the National Science Foundation for support under grant 2239690. D.C. and F.S. acknowledge the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, VTO, US DOE through the US–Germany Cooperation on Energy Storage under contract DE-AC02-05CH11357. A.U. and U.K. acknowledge the BMFTR in the framework of LILLINT (03XP0511C). Z.L., D.B., M.Werres., B.H. and A.L. acknowledge financial support within the LILLINT II project (03XP0511E). S.W.-M. and B.v.H. acknowledge financial support within the LILLINT II project (03XP0511D). F.H., R.-A.E, S.B., E.F., I.C.-L., D.W. and M.Winter. acknowledge financial support within the LILLINT II project (13XP0511B).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Helmholtz Institute Münster (IMD-4), Münster, Germany

    Dominik Weintz, Sascha Berg, Egbert Figgemeier, Martin Winter & Isidora Cekic-Laskovic

  2. German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics, Stuttgart, Germany

    Martin Werres, Birger Horstmann & Arnulf Latz

  3. Helmholtz Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage (HIU), Ulm, Germany

    Martin Werres, Birger Horstmann, Ziyuan Lyu, Dominic Bresser & Arnulf Latz

  4. Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    Rachid Amine

  5. Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    Chi-Cheung Su, Xinlin Li & Khalil Amine

  6. Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Yaobin Xu, Ridwan A. Ahmed & Wu Xu

  7. Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Chongmin Wang

  8. MEET Battery Research Center, University of Muenster, Münster, Germany

    Bastian von Holtum, Simon Wiemers-Meyer & Martin Winter

  9. Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Dongliang Chen, Jianwei Lai & Feifei Shi

  10. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Christian O. Plaza-Rivera & Yang Shao-Horn

  11. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Daniel Wang & Yang Shao-Horn

  12. Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Yang Shao-Horn

  13. Institute for Applied Materials—Electrochemical Technologies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Aravind Unni & Ulrike Krewer

  14. Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Stephen Scoggins, Perla B. Balbuena & Jorge M. Seminario

  15. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Perla B. Balbuena & Jorge M. Seminario

  16. Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Perla B. Balbuena

  17. Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Jorge M. Seminario

  18. Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Asia Sarycheva & Robert Kostecki

  19. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany

    Ziyuan Lyu & Dominic Bresser

  20. Institute of Energy Technologies (IET-1), Jülich, Germany

    Florian Hausen & Rüdiger-A. Eichel

  21. Institute of Physical Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Florian Hausen & Rüdiger-A. Eichel

  22. Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Khalil Amine

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Weintz, D., Werres, M., Horstmann, B. et al. Nanoengineering of non-aqueous liquid electrolyte solutions for future lithium metal batteries. Nat. Nanotechnol. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-02110-z

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