Built-in stimuli-responsive designs for safe and reliable electrochemical energy storage devices—A review

Stimuli-responsive materials have emerged as an eye-catching research area in the realm of energy storage. When integrated into electrochemical energy storage devices, these stimuli-responsive designs will endow the devices with self-protective intelligence. By severing as built-in sensors, these responsive designs have the capacity to detect and respond automatically to various forms of abuse, such as thermal, electrical, and mechanical, thereby endowing electrochemical devices with intrinsic safety. In this Review, we summarized recent advances of stimuli-responsive designs on electrochemical devices with an aim of providing self-actuated safety protection. The working principles of responsive designs featuring their specific problem-solving strategies are then presented. Finally, we provide a perspective on the remaining challenges of the stimuli-responsive designs with the vision to expedite further research in this burgeoning area.