The importance of lithium batteries to both energy and environmental security and to economic development in the global marketplace has been well recognized by the United States Department of Energy. Beginning in 2002, the Vehicle Technologies Office within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has directed and funded a significant R&D program across the national lab complex, academia, and industry specifically targeting lithium-based batteries. This family of electrochemical energy storage cell chemistries was seen as, and has been proven to be, foundational to the widespread electrification of the US vehicle fleet. Unlike previous major battery chemistries, for example lead acid and nickel metal hydride, viable lithium batteries have been developed with a chemically and structurally diverse set of active anode materials (AAMs): lithium metal, graphite, intermetallic alloy (Si- and Sn-containing) coupled to an even more diverse set of active cathode materials (ACMs): transition metal oxyanions, molecular sulfur, and molecular oxygen.

In the shorter term, ~< 10 years, transition metal oxyanions are and will continue to be the focus of intense R&D efforts. Two critical characteristics in need of improvement in these so-called next generation Li-ion cathodes are electrode specific capacity and electrode and electrolyte stability under high voltage operating conditions. The limit in capacity—in electrochemical energy stored—for lithium intercalating oxyanionic materials used in practical devices may well have already been reached. In the longer term, only with cell chemistries beyond lithium ion will batteries achieve the energy densities necessary for future applications such as autonomous electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft. Next generation ACMs (NG-ACMs) will not provide the requisite specific capacity. On that horizon, lithium-air batteries have received a great deal of attention. Molecular oxygen-based cathodes are a critical class of beyond Li-ion ACMs (BLI-ACMs).

Considering this backdrop of technology development and the birth of a trillion dollar industry, there exists a pressing need for understanding the physicochemical processes at advanced electrodes involving oxygen electrochemistry, electrocatalytic oxygen reduction and evolution in BLI-ACMs and anionic redox processes in NG-ACMs. This interplay of oxygen electrochemistry and promising electrochemical energy storage devices will be the central theme of the presentation. What are the central issues in understanding structure and activity involving oxygen electrochemistry in energy storage materials. Examples of scientific progress from projects supported in national laboratories, academia, and industry will be presented and future directions of R&D discussed.