More patience—a plea for longer stability testing and systematic data reporting
Abstract
A brief look at publications in this journal, as well as many other journals covering materials and systems for electrochemical energy conversion and storage, confirms the impression that mostly electrochemical materials science in terms of electrode materials, sometimes electrolytes and electrocatalysts, is at work. Once a study of a newly developed material for a battery or supercapacitor electrode is (barely) completed, the authors rush to report. In their enthusiastic excitement, they frequently calculate energy and power density for a single electrode, apparently happily clueless about the absence of single-electrode batteries and capacitors. Reporting charge densities with specification of the explored electrode potential range would be fine [1], and stating explicitly whether only the active material, or the complete electrode material including binder and conductive additives, even the support and current collector, has been included in calculating said charge density would be fine! In case of a complete cell (the terms full cell or full battery are hardly helpful because they commonly refer to the state of charge), the same applies. Setting up a Ragone plot for a single electrode (material) is obviously baseless, too, but very popular. Disappointed authors afraid to lose their chance to demonstrate the high current capabilities of their electrode have a popular and well-established option: display the capacity, i.e., charge storage capability, retention as a function of applied current!
Copyright (c) 2025 Rudolf Holze

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References
[1]Ge Y, Xie X, Roscher J, et al. How to measure and report the capacity of electrochemical double layers, supercapacitors, and their electrode materials. Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry. 2020; 24: 3215–3230.
[2]Qu Q, Liu L, Fu L, et al. Composite Electrolytes for Non-Lithium-Ion Batteries. Polymers. 2025; 17(22): 3084.



