New frontiers in alkali metal insertion into carbon electrodes for energy storage.

With rising interest in new electrodes for next-generation batteries, carbon materials remain as top competitors with their reliable performance, low-cost, low voltage reactions, and diverse tunability. Depending on carbon's structure, it can attain high cyclability as with Li at crystalline graphite or exceptional capacities with Na at amorphous, porous hard carbons. In this review, we discuss key results and research directions using carbon electrodes for alkali ion storage.