Using keywords to perform very specific searches in ICSD

Table 1: Advantages and disadvantages/challenges of aluminum-based batteries

Leisegang et al. go into detail on individual aspects (anode, cathode, electrolyte) and provide interesting potential new materials for use in aluminum-ion batteries based on different theoretical approaches in combination with a screening of the ICSD database. How well these potential candidates perform needs to be tested in practice.

The inclusion of keywords for new entries in ICSD (2) allows for searches that can be much more specific with regards to certain material properties or applications. Since these keywords are only included since 2016, only the newest entries and hence the newest research trends are covered, but the use of keywords will be steadily expanded. The keywords assigned in ICSD describe material properties, analysis methods used or technical fields of application. This information is usually more specific than what is provided by the authors as keywords and often includes more information than can be deduced from the abstract alone.

With the use of relevant keywords in ICSD one can not only confirm the statements regarding the priority of the research as stated in the review article by Leisegang et al., but also provide further information about potential candidates in general based on the experiments that have been performed by the original authors. A search in ICSD using keywords for materials with a potential application in the field of batteries provides the results shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Results from searches in ICSD for certain battery-related keywords in combination with an element search for Li (and/or anything else) or Al (without Li). In brackets are given the results for the same searches but only for theoretical structures (2).

An application as electrode material does not seem to have been seriously considered yet. Rather, aluminum has so far mainly been considered as a possible (solid-state) electrolyte in battery research, as these Al-types of compounds often have channels within the crystal structure (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Crystal structure CC 243536 with keyword "channel" (see Table 2). The framework of Al/Cr, As and O forms channels within the crystal structure, which are normally filled with cations (in this structure the cation is potassium, but it was deleted to show the channel). Left: View along the c-axis; Right: View along the b-axis.

Reference:

1. Leisegang, T., Meutzner, F., Zschornak, M., Münchgesang, W., Schmid, R., Nestler, T., Eremin, R. A., Kabanov, A. A., Blatov, V. A. & Meyer, D. C. (2019). The Aluminum-Ion Battery: A Sustainable and Seminal Concept? Front. Chem. 7:268, 10.3389/fchem.2019.00268.
2. Zagorac, D., Muller, H., Ruehl, S., Zagorac, J. & Rehme, S. (2019). J. Appl. Cryst. 52, 10.1107/S160057671900997X, in press.