A review of self-healing electrode and electrolyte materials and their mitigating degradation of Lithium batteries

The performance degradation of electrochemical energy storage devices such as batteries is one of the largest challenges hindering their many practical applications. Developing novel electrode and electrolyte materials with self-healing abilities to repair internal or external damages is an important and effective approach for mitigating the degradation of lithium-based batteries. Based on the most recent literature, this paper comprehensively reviews various categories of self-healing materials in terms of their synthesis, characterization, performance validation/optimization as well as functional mechanisms. To facilitate further research and development, several technical challenges hindering the practical applications of self-healing electrode and electrolyte materials are analyzed and the possible research directions for overcoming the challenges are also proposed in this paper.