Hierarchically porous membranes for lithium rechargeable batteries: Recent progress and opportunities

Hierarchically porous membranes offer an effective platform for facilitating mass transport and ion diffusion in energy storage systems and have the potential to achieve novel battery configurations. As the vital roles such as electrodes, interlayers, separators, and electrolytes in the battery systems, regulating the membrane porous structures and selecting appropriate membrane materials are significant for realizing high energy density, excellent rate capability, and long cycling stability of lithium rechargeable batteries (LRBs). In this review, we highlight recent progress on tunable synthesis of various porous membranes for LRB applications, and discuss how the membranes with hierarchically porous frameworks or ordered channels can be employed as electrodes/separators/interlayers for improved ion/electrolyte transport and charge transfer. We also present in‐depth discussion of the structure–property‐performance relationships of the membranes based on fundamental thermodynamic and kinetic aspects in membrane formation, transport mechanism, and cell configurations. Finally, the prospects of optimizing membrane development for advanced battery applications are discussed. Porous membranes provide an effective platform for enhancing the energy density of lithium‐based rechargeable batteries (LRBs), especially through battery architecture engineering without changing the fundamental battery chemistry. This review focuses on the porous membranes with applications and advanced design principles of the cell configuration in LRBs.