  Intercalation materials are promising candidates for reversible energy
storage and are, for example, used as lithium-battery electrodes,
hydrogen-storage compounds, and electrochromic materials. An important issue
preventing the more widespread use of these materials is that they undergo
structural transformations (of up to ~10% lattice strains) during
intercalation, which expand the material, nucleate microcracks, and,
ultimately, lead to material failure. Besides the structural transformation of
lattices, the crystallographic texture of the intercalation material plays a
key role in governing ion-transport properties, generating phase separation
microstructures, and elastically interacting with crystal defects. In this
review, I provide an overview of how the structural transformation of lattices,
phase transformation microstructures, and crystallographic defects affect the
chemo-mechanical properties of intercalation materials. In each section, I
identify the key challenges and opportunities to crystallographically design
intercalation compounds to improve their properties and lifespans. I
predominantly cite examples from the literature of intercalation cathodes used
in rechargeable batteries, however, the identified challenges and opportunities
are transferable to a broader range of intercalation compounds.
