Vanadium-Based Cathode Materials for Rechargeable Multivalent Batteries: Challenges and Opportunities

Due to the large reserves, low cost, high security and high energy density, rechargeable multivalent batteries have attracted extensive research enthusiasm for a long time. Multivalent batteries are also supposed as the potential candidates to Li-ion batteries in portable electronic devices and large-scale energy storage units. Unfortunately, most commercial cathode materials in Li-ion batteries cannot be applied in multivalent batteries because of the intensive polarization problem of multivalent intercalated ions (Mg2+, Zn2+, Al3+). Choosing and synthesizing the appropriate cathode materials are the main issues in overcoming the intensive polarization problem. Vanadium-based materials often possess many kinds of oxidation states because of the mutable vanadium element, which can facilitate achieving local electroneutrality and relieve the polarization problem of multivalent ions. In this review, we summarize the researches about the vanadium-based cathode materials for multivalent batteries and highlight the intercalation mechanism of multivalent ions to vanadium-based materials. In addition, different kinds of optimizing strategies are extracted from the literatures. On the basis of our review, progresses and future challenges of vanadium-based cathode materials in rechargeable multivalent batteries are more explicit.