Electrode materials with tailored facets for electrochemical energy storage

In recent years, the design and morphological control of crystals with tailored facets have become hot spots in the field of electrochemical energy storage devices. For electrode materials, morphologies play important roles in their activities because their shapes determine how many facets of specific orientation are exposed and therefore available for surface reactions. This review focuses on the strategies for crystal facet control and the unusual electrochemical properties of electrode materials bound by tailored facets. Here, electrode materials with tailored facets include transition metal oxides such as SnO2, Co3O4, NiO, Cu2O, and MnO2, elementary substances such as Si and Au, and intercalation compounds such as Li4Ti5O12, LiCoO2, LiMn2O4, LiFePO4, and Na0.7MnO2 for various applications of Li-ion batteries, aqueous rechargeable lithium batteries, Na-ion batteries, Li-O-2 batteries and supercapacitors. How these electrode materials with tailored facets affect their electrochemical properties is discussed. Finally, research opportunities as well as the challenges in this emerging research frontier are highlighted.