This invention was made with government support under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 awarded by the United States Department of Energy to UChicago Argonne, LLC, operator of Argonne National Laboratory. The government has certain rights in the invention.

This invention relates to materials for use in electrolytes for energy storage devices, notably magnesium ion electrochemical cells and batteries. More particularly, the invention relates to perfluoroalkoxy borate and aluminate magnesium salts, as well as to electrolytes, magnesium ion cells, and batteries comprising the salts.

Rechargeable batteries are increasingly used for a variety of energy storage applications. While, lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries remain a very important commercial and research focus, there is an increasing need for new battery technologies to provide better cycling and less capacity loss than the Li-ion.

With regard to the growing environmental crisis resulting from rapid worldwide energy consumption, energy harvested from sustainable renewable sources like solar, wind, or tide is desirable. However, the lack of efficient and economical energy storage devices is still a bottle neck for the practical application of these clean energies. Albeit the great success of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in the field of portable electronic applications, the cost and safety barriers make the state-of-the-art LIBs not suitable for large power storage or transmission.