Salt powder assisted synthesis of nanostructured materials and their electrochemical applications in energy storage devices

Abstract Electrochemical energy-storage devices are essential in our daily life to supply electricity in order to support electric vehicles, portable electronic devices and back-up power. Innovative researches on new versatile electrode materials are the foundation for the development of neoteric high-performance electrochemical energy-storage devices. Electrode materials with nanoscale size as well as unique morphologies often provide higher theoretical specific capacities than bulk materials. To date, salt powder assisted synthetic methods have been continuously investigated. This review reinforces our understanding of solid salt assisted synthetic methods to make them more sufficient and systematic, which promotes their widespread development and application, especially in the synthesis of nanostructured materials for electrochemical energy storage devices. This work reviews recent scientific advances involving solid salts as functional assistant for the preparations of nanostructured materials with high porosity, as well as their applications in electrochemical energy storage devices. Furthermore, this review highlights that the optimization of the precursors as well as careful choice of salt is needed to fabricate such nanomaterials successfully. Finally, we present a vision for the future development of optimal electrochemical energy storage devices with excellent performances derived from their unique nanostructures with the assistance of solid salts which possess infinite possibilities.