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Co-solvent strategy for rechargeable post-lithium metal batteries

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume 9, pages 415–426 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

The potential increase in cost of lithium-ion batteries owing to the limited supply of lithium has prompted investigations into alternative and complementary rechargeable batteries that use post-lithium charge carriers with higher elemental abundance. However, achieving highly reversible post-lithium metal anodes with sufficient kinetics remains challenging. The addition of co-solvents to conventional electrolytes is emerging as an important strategy to resolve these issues. In this Perspective, we discuss the progress of the co-solvent strategy for sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, zinc and aluminium post-lithium metal batteries. The coordination ability of co-solvents with post-lithium charge carriers is presented as a useful guide for selecting co-solvents for the respective battery electrolytes, owing to its correlation with several influential factors that affect the electrochemical performance of the metal anodes, such as solvation structure, de-solvation process and solid electrolyte interphase formation. Additionally, a discussion is provided on the importance of unravelling the effects beyond the solvation sheath of cationic charge carriers and for the development of sustainable electrolytes.

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Fig. 1: Co-solvent strategy for sodium metal anodes.
Fig. 2: Solvated electron-based degradation of ether-based electrolytes and alkali metal anodes.
Fig. 3: Illustration of the beneficial effect of co-solvents upon promoting the reversibility and kinetics of magnesium metal anodes.
Fig. 4: Illustration of the beneficial effects of co-solvent on the electrolyte bulk and an electrolyte–zinc metal electrode interface for promoted reversibility of zinc metal anodes.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from the Helmholtz Association, National Key R & D Program (2022YFB2404600), Natural Science Foundation of China (Key Project of 52131306), Project on Carbon Emission Peak and Neutrality of Jiangsu Province (BE2022031-4), the Start-up Research Fund of Southeast University (4003002418) and the Big Data Computing Center of Southeast University are acknowledged.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xu Liu, Xu Dong.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Energy and Environment & Z Energy Storage Center, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

    Xu Liu & Yuping Wu

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

    Xu Liu, Xu Dong & Stefano Passerini

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

    Xu Liu, Xu Dong & Stefano Passerini

  4. Department of Science and Engineering of Materials, Environment and Urban Planning, Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy

    Henry Adenusi

  5. Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Center for Transport Technologies, Wien, Austria

    Stefano Passerini

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  1. Xu Liu
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  2. Xu Dong
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  3. Henry Adenusi
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  4. Yuping Wu
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  5. Stefano Passerini
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Contributions

X.L. and S.P. conceived the idea. X.L. and X.D. read and summarized the relevant literature. X.L. and X.D. wrote the original draft. H.A. revised the original draft. Y.W. revised the original draft. S.P. revised the original draft, supervised the project and acquired the funding.

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Correspondence to Yuping Wu or Stefano Passerini.

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Nature Reviews Chemistry thanks Oleg Borodin, Weiyang Li and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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European Chemical Agency receiving the PFASs restriction proposal from five national authorities: https://echa.europa.eu/-/echa-receives-pfass-restriction-proposal-from-five-national-authorities

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Liu, X., Dong, X., Adenusi, H. et al. Co-solvent strategy for rechargeable post-lithium metal batteries. Nat Rev Chem 9, 415–426 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-025-00714-6

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