Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (E-REV) is a new type of electric vehicle in which a range extender (RE) extends the range by charging the battery or directly drive the electric motor. It is a transition mode of the Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) and the Electrical Vehicle (EV). Comparing with HEV, it has advantage in lowing the emission, noise and systematic complexity. While comparing with EV, it has advantage in longer range and lower cost. Thus, E-REVs is a promising mode for large scale commercial applications. The batteries in E-REVs do not need to support very long range by themselves, but they need higher efficiency, higher energy density and higher power density. This is a new challenge and opportunity for lithium-ion battery development. This paper briefly introduces the development of E-REVs and their high importance to the new energy vehicle development of our nation. Base on this, the batteries suitable for E-REVs are also reviewed.

Carbon materials with high specific surface area are crucially important for electrochemical energy storage. They are currently widely used in various electrochemical energy storage devices. This paper reviews the applications of carbon materials with high specific surface area in supercapacitors and lead-carbon. In the field of supercapacitors, the synthesis and application of new types of carbon materials with high specific surface area improves the specific capacity of the electrode. While in the field of lead-acid batteries, using suitable amount of high surface area carbon materials in the anode also improves the electrochemical performance remarkably. It is known as the "lead-carbon" battery. Future development trends of carbon materials in supercapacitors and lead-carbon batteries were briefly discussed as well.

This paper summarizes the development and the latest research progress on inorganic additives for lithium ion battery electrolytes. Combined with their working mechanisms, the inorganic additives are divided into three main categories: inorganic film-forming additives, transition metal salts and others. The important role of inorganic additives for lithium-ion battery electrolytes was described by analyzing their effects and working mechanisms. The future prospects of inorganic additives for lithium-ion battery electrolytes were analyzed.

Organic-semiconductors based solar cell has been attracting great attentions since 1990s because it has the advantage of low cost, light weight, ease of large-area fabrication and good flexibility. Organic tandem solar cells containing two or more heterojunctions that enhance the light harvesting from solar irradiation could reach higher power conversion comparing to single-junction organic solar cells. In this paper, we review the history, current status and future outlook of the organic solar cells from the aspects of device structure, recombination layers and developing low bandgap photoactive materials to achieve high efficiency of organic tandem solar cells.

In recent years, unbelievable progress has been showed in the area of perovskite solar cells with energy conversion efficiencies boosted from 3.8% in 2009 up to 19.3% in 2014. Moreover, it is still difficult to estimate the future limit of perovskite solar cells. In this paper, the research progress in perovskite solar cells is summarized, and its problem and developing tendency are also analysed.

At present, silicon-based solar cells are widely used, but their high cost and low efficiency limit the promotion of solar power generation still. To solve these problems, there are two approaches: first, use silicon nanowire arrays instead of planar silicon for reducing the reflection of light effectively, increasing light absorption and utilization because silicon nanowire arrays have excellent optical and electrical properties. second, using organic/inorganic hybrid solar cell materials for improving stability/efficiency and reducing costs. This paper summarized the status and the problems of the present Si NWs/PEDOT: PSS hybrid solar cells, and discussed the possible solutions and research areas.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOF-5) as template and the sources of carbon and zinc, the cobalt-nickel-zinc oxides/carbon nanocomposites have been synthesized by impregnation method following by a calcinations procedure. The microstructure and morphology of Co-Ni-Zn oxides/C composite are characterized by XRD,SEM,EDS and nitrogen adsorption/desorption experiment. The result shows that the Co-Ni-Zn oxides/C composites display a porous structure with a specific surface area of 155 m²/g. The electrochemical performances are investigated by CV, galvanostatic charge-discharge tests and EIS. The specific capacitance of as-prepared porous Co-Ni-Zn oxides/C composites is 804 F/g at 1 A/g with the retention ratio of 94.4% after 1000 cycles, which is much higher than that of Co-Ni oxides (180 F/g). The high rate discharge (HRD) for porous Co-Ni-Zn oxides/C composites reaches to 90% at 10 A/g.

For further improvement of the performances of energy generation and storage devices, a better understanding of the mechanisms of carriers' excitation, transport and recombination in nanometer scale is essential, especially when there are plenty of surfaces, interfaces and defects involved in these kind of devices, which will influence carrier dynamics greatly. By combining scanning probe microscope (SPM) with confocal optical measurement system and electrochemical measurement system, a set of scanning near-field optics-electrical microscope (SNOEM) was developed. Local optical spectra and surface photovoltage/photocurrent can be acquired during scanning topographic images with a nanometer scale resolution. A special liquid cell was fabricated for the SPM interface evolution during electrochemical reactions at the interfaces between liquid and solid under light illumination. In this review, we introduce the main structure and functions of the instrument, together with its typical application in studying the electrical properties of graphene/GaN interfaces and the surface photovoltage properties of GaN surfaces. Graphene were found to be able to reduce the contact barrier with both P-doped GaN and N-doped GaN self-adaptively due to its unique linear energy band. Some wrinkles can even form local ohmic contacts. In the study of GaN photovoltage study, the thread dislocations introduced by a nanoindentation were observed as V-pits, where the photovoltage was lower than that on plane surface under ultra-violet illumination. By fitting the spatially resolved surface photovoltage spectroscopy curves, the hole diffusion length is 90 nm shorter and the surface electron recombination velocity is 1.6 times higher at an individual thread dislocation than those at plane surface. The results will be helpful in future device development.

Spherical Ni_0.80Co_0.15Al_0.05(OH)_2.05 precursors were synthesized via precipitation method. The Ni_0.80Co_0.15Al_0.05(OH)_2.05 precursors were mixed with excess lithium sources. LiNi_0.80Co_0.15Al_0.05O₂ cathode materials were obtained after sintering the mixtures at O₂ and air atmosphere, respectively. The structure and morphology of the materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The electrochemical performance of the cathode materials were analyzed by constant current charge-discharge test methods. When the molar ratio of Li : (Ni+Co+Al) is 1.15, the structure, morphology and electrochemical performance of the LiNi_0.80Co_0.15 Al_0.05O₂ cathode sample obtained at air atmosphere are very similar with those of the sample made at O₂ atmosphere. It was proved that LiNi_0.80Co_0.15Al_0.05O₂ cathode materials with excellent performance can also be synthesized even at air atmosphere with the help of excess Li. At rate of 0.1 C and 1 C, the cathode materials showed initial capacity of 200 mA·h/g and 168 mA·h/g, respectively, and retention of more than 80% after 800 cycles.

Due to the high specific energy and good cycle ability, secondary lithium-ion batteries have been adapted as the main power source for portable electronics in the past two decades. Recently this technology has been extended into the fast growing electric vehicle market. However such application posts further needs of battery technology advancement, especially higher energy density to ectend the driving range of electric vehicles. The higher energy density in batteries can be achieved by improving specific capacity of active materials or by increasing the working potential of the cathode materials. Among various high-voltage cathode materials, the spinel LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄ has been investigated as a promising cathode material for Li-ion batteries with high energy density. In this paper, LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄ / graphite and LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄ / Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ are manufactured as the 32131-type cells, which offer more practical and reliable cell data compared with laboratory size coin-cells. The cathode electrode composite is LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄ : SP : KS-6 : PVDF = 91.0 : 3.5 : 1.0 : 4.5, and the two anode electrodes are Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ : SP : KS-6 : PVDF = 90.0 : 4.0 : 1.0 : 5.0 and graphite : SP : CMC = 93.2 : 2.5 : 4.3, respectively. The cells are 7.5Ah (152 W·h/kg) for LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄/graphite with N/P=1.1 and 5.5 A·h (81 W·h/kg) for LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄/Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ with N/P=0.9. The capacity retention is 90.1% for LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄ /graphite after 250 cycles with 0.5 C charge/discharge rate at room temperature. For LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄ /Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ cell, the capacity retention is 97.2% after 200 cycles with 1.0 C charge/1.5 C discharge rate at room temperature, the cycle performance is almost the same with LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄/Li half cell. Therefore, the difference of cycle performance seems to be depended on the anodes. The capacity fading of the LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄/graphite can be explained by the impact of Mn dissolution, and active Li⁺ loss in the full-cell system through continuous SEI formation (electrolyte reduction) prompted by Mn reduced on the surface of graphite. LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄/Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ cell whose capacity is limited by Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ anode showed almost no SEI and has better cycling performance.

This bimonthly review paper highlights 100 recent published papers on lithium batteries. We searched the Web of Science and found 1541 papers online from Aug. 1,2014 to Sept. 30,2014. 100 of them were selected to be highlighted. Layered and spinel oxides, olivine structure cathode materials, Si, Sn and C based anodes are still under extensive investigations. Structure change/surface evolution and the effects of surface modifications are analyzed by calculations and experiments. Solid state electrolytes and additives for liquid electrolyte are. There are a few papers related to Li/S battery, Li-air battery and more papers related to cell/pack analyses and modeling.

Scientific and technological progresses in lithium ion batteries are highly depending on advanced characterization techniques. Various physical and chemical properties are expected to obtain, including chemical composition, morphology, crystal structure, microstructure, surface structure, transport properties, mechanical properties, thermal properties. Here main characterization techniques for investigating lithium ion batteries have been introduced, including several new time and spatial resolved techniques, such as AFM-Raman; in-situ SEM and TEM; spherical aberration-corrected STEM; STXM; neutron diffraction and SIMS.