3D‑Printed and Architected Electrodes and Separators for Fast‑Charging, Thermally Safer Next‑Generation Batteries

Electrochemical energy storage is a dynamic and critical field underpinning key advances in electric vehicles, grid-scale storage, and high-power portable devices. Despite rapid progress, achieving fast-charging capability, enhanced thermal safety, and extended cycle life remains challenging due to intrinsic limitations in transport and stability - especially at practical electrode thicknesses and loadings. Key bottlenecks include restricted ionic transport, uneven reaction profiles, mechanical degradation, and heat generation, all of which constrain the safe and efficient operation of modern batteries across diverse chemistries.

Recent advances in 3D printing and additive manufacturing have opened new opportunities to design battery components with precisely tuned architectures. Through control of porosity, tortuosity, surface area, and current-collector geometry, these approaches can improve ion/electron transport, structural robustness, and heat dissipation, while enabling new strategies to mitigate failure. Architected separators and membranes further support these advances by offering tailored pathways for ions and heat, contributing to overall cell stability and safety under aggressive cycling. However, a comprehensive understanding of how 3D‑architected structures affect performance, degradation, and manufacturability across different battery platforms—and at relevant areal loadings - remains incomplete.

This Research Topic aims to showcase cutting-edge developments in the design, fabrication, characterization, and modeling of 3D‑printed and architected electrodes and separators for fast‑charging and thermally safer next‑generation batteries. It especially encourages contributions addressing advanced non‑Li‑ion chemistries, such as sodium‑ion, zinc, magnesium, calcium, aluminum, fluoride‑ion, and metal-sulfur systems, as well as innovative hybrid configurations where architected components are integrated with established cell platforms. At the same time, we also welcome Li‑ion and Li‑based studies where the central novelty is architecture- and manufacturing-enabled improvements in fast charging, thermal management/safety, durability, and/or manufacturability and scale-up (rather than incremental materials-only optimization).

To ensure appropriate section alignment while keeping a unified theme, this Research Topic is hosted in Next Generation Batteries and Technologies and is intentionally cross-sectional: manuscripts with a strong emphasis on Li‑ion cells and system-level demonstrations (e.g., fast-charge protocols, safety validation, diagnostics, module/pack implications) may be submitted via Battery Systems and Applications, and performance/degradation/benchmarking‑focused studies may be submitted via Battery Performance, while remaining part of the same Research Topic.

To gather further insights into architecture-driven advances in battery technology, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

3D printing and additive manufacturing approaches for electrodes and separators (direct ink writing, stereolithography/DLP, inkjet/aerosol jet, laser-based and cold-spray techniques, and templating-assisted methods)

Architected thick electrodes for improved ion and electron transport and uniform reaction distribution at high areal loading

Architected separators and membranes with controlled pore networks, anisotropy, gradient structures, and robust mechanical properties

Architecture-centric strategies to reduce polarization, enhance rate capability, and mitigate heat generation during fast charge and discharge

Relationships between structure, transport, and thermal management, including porosity/tortuosity, effective conductivity, wetting/infiltration, and microstructural factors

Failure and degradation mechanisms associated with 3D‑architected configurations, such as hotspot formation, pore clogging, mechanical failure, delamination, and inhomogeneous utilization

Advanced characterization of printed/architected materials and cells, leveraging 3D tomography, operando/in situ methods, thermal mapping, and quantitative microstructural analysis

Multiscale modeling and simulation of transport, electrochemistry, mechanics, and thermal phenomena, including both microstructure-informed and data-driven approaches

Manufacturability, scale-up, and quality control for printed battery components, addressing reproducibility, defect tolerance, metrology, process–structure–property relations, and techno-economic considerations

Demonstrations and case studies across non‑Li‑ion, Li‑based, and hybrid systems achieving improved fast‑charge performance, safety, and/or manufacturability

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Keywords: 3D printing; additive manufacturing; architected electrodes; thick electrodes; separators; tortuosity; fast charging; thermal management; transport modeling; X-ray computed tomography; non‑Li‑ion batteries; solid-state batteries; hybrid systems

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.