Page 28 - Handbook of Battery Materials

XXVII

Preface to the Second Edition of the Handbook
of Battery Materials

For Kijan and Stina

The language of experiment is more authoritative than any reasoning, facts
can destroy our ratiocination – not vice versa.
Count Alessandro Volta, 1745–1827
Inventor of the Battery

You are looking at the second edition of the Handbook of Battery Materials. It
has been 12 years since the first edition edited by Prof. J¨ urgen Besenhard was
published.
This second edition is dedicated in memory of world renowned Prof. J¨ urgen
Besenhard who was a pioneer in the field of electrochemical energy storage and
lithium batteries. As a young scientist in the field of electrochemical energy storage,
I am humbled to inherit this handbook from him.
Over the last decade, driven by consumer electronics, power tools, and re-
cently automotive and renewable energy storage, electrochemical energy storage
chemistries and devices have been developed at a never before seen pace. New
chemistries have been discovered, and continued performance increases to estab-
lished chemistries are under way. With these developments, we decided to update
the handbook from 1999. The new edition is completely revised and expanded to
almost double its original content.
Due to the fast pace of the market and very quick developments on large scale
energy storage, we removed the chapter on Global Competition. It might be outdated
by the time this book actually hits the shelves. Chapters from Parts I and II from the
first edition on Fundamentals and General Aspects of Electrochemical Energy Storage,
Practical Batteries, and Materials for Aqueous Electrolyte Batteries have been revised
for the new edition to reflect the work in the past decade. Part III on Materials for
Alkali Metal Batteries has been expanded in view of the many research efforts on
lithium ion and other alkali metal ion batteries. In addition, we added new Parts IV
on New Emerging Technologies and V on Performance and Technology Development
with chapters on Metal Air, Catalysts, and Membranes, Sulfur, System Level Modeling,
Mechanics of Battery Materials, and Electrode Manufacturing.