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Architected Porous Metals in Electrochemical Energy Storage

Porous metallic structures are regularly used in electrochemical energy storage devices as supports, current collectors or active electrode materials. Bulk metal porosification, dealloying, welding or chemical synthesis routes involving crystal growth or self-assembly for example, can sometimes provide limited control of porous length scale, ordering, periodicity, reproducibility, porosity and surface area. Additive manufacturing and 3D printing has shown the potential to revolutionize the fabrication of architected metals many forms, allowing complex geometries not usually possible by traditional methods, but enabling complete design freedom of a porous metal based on the required physical or chemical property to be exploited. We discuss properties of porous metal structures in EES devices and provide some opinions on how architected metals may alleviate issues with electrochemically active porous metal current collectors, and provide opportunities for optimum design based on electrochemical characteristics required by batteries, supercapacitors or other electrochemical devices.