Interfacial design of Al electrode for efficient aluminum-air batteries: issues and advances

Aluminum-air batteries are attracting wide interest as energy storage devices owing to their low cost and high energy density. Compared with the numerous researches on the electrocatalysts at the air electrode, research on enhancing the anodic electrochemical performance has been largely neglected. At present, the internal mechanisms of interfacial reactions on the aluminum anodes remain unclear, and the explicit guidelines for the interface design strategy to reduce anodic passivation and self-corrosion are urgently needed to be summarized. Herein, particular attention has been dedicated to multiple aspects of aluminum-based anode, electrolyte, and the cell components design. This Minireview looks forward to offering guidance for designing novel aluminum-air batteries and outlooking future research directions. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.