The increasing demand for portable electronics as well as the politically backed rise in electric vehicles requires new, advanced materials for improved battery systems. For this reasons, scientists as well as industry face the challenge to further boost capacity and performance beyond the actual state of the art. Nowadays, almost all electrical high-energy and high-power storage systems are based on lithium-ion batteries. A change in technology is not foreseeable yet and materials for next-generation batteries need to be compatible with the existing systems. Several institutes located at the universities in the Ruhr area such as the Institute for Combustion and Gas Dynamics (IVG) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Center for Electrochemical Sciences the Ruhr University Bochum and the Fuel Cell Research Center (ZBT) are engaged in battery research along the process chain. Their activities cover the range from materials development and processing all the way to manufacturing complete battery cells. A specific focus is on the development and electrochemical characterization of new active anode and cathode materials. Based on newly developed silicon/ carbon composite materials, highly promising active components have been identified and synthesized for next-generation lithium-ion batteries.