| Work Detail |
Chinese researchers have outlined the technical problems hampering the development of hard carbon, considered the most promising anode for high-performance commercial sodium-ion batteries.
Sodium-ion batteries have attracted great interest due to their advantages over the ubiquitous lithium-ion technology, such as low cost of raw materials, increased safety, fast charging capability, and low-temperature performance. With this technology nearing commercialization, the search for electrode materials with high electrochemical performance is ongoing and hard carbon is emerging as the most promising anode material.
Now, a new research paper by scientists from Fuzhou University (China) and the University of Macao has outlined the challenges and future prospects for hard carbon.
The researchers point out that the commercialization of hard carbon continues to face technical problems such as low initial Coulombic efficiency, low yield and insufficient cyclic stability, due to the intrinsically irregular microstructure of hard carbon.
“To address these issues, rational design of hard carbon microstructure is crucial to achieve high-performance sodium-ion batteries, by gaining an in-depth understanding of their structure-performance correlations,” they write.
Furthermore, their review examines a series of research studies prompted by the emergence of hard carbon electrodes, covering in the process the sodium storage mechanism of hard carbon electrodes, the selection of hard carbon precursors, the engineering of electrolyte adaptation and the requirements for practical commercial engineering.
The researchers highlight the importance of precursor selection, since most hard carbon electrode precursors come from biomass materials and industrial product derivatives, such as cellulose, ginkgo leaf, glucose, cotton, resin, sucrose or glucose. “The selection of low-cost, scalable precursors has become a key factor affecting the commercialization of hard carbon,” they write.
Their review also considers various sodium storage mechanisms, such as the insertion nanopore filling model, the absorption-insertion model, the absorption nanopore filling model, or the absorption-insertion nanopore filling model, which can produce hard carbon materials with different properties.
Furthermore, the researchers emphasize the importance of combining the hard carbon electrode with the appropriate electrolyte as an important factor for the electrochemical performance of the batteries. They note that ester electrolytes combine poorly with hard carbon, so the search for high-voltage ester electrolytes should be a priority.
“In the future, it will be crucial to determine how to construct high-performance hard carbon to achieve practical commercial applications of sodium ion batteries, and this will require a thorough understanding of the actual mechanism of sodium ion storage, carbon preparation hard and precursor selection, as well as electrolyte regulation,” the researchers write.
Finally, the article highlights the future development paths of hard carbon to achieve commercialization of high-performance sodium-ion batteries.
This includes further study of the sodium storage mechanism of hard carbon to help improve the electrochemical performance of hard carbon electrodes, further improvement of their electrochemical performance, development of low-cost, low-energy precursor materials, and high carbon yield, and those derived from industrial waste material, as well as presodiation treatments that can guarantee high Coulombic efficiency and optimize the energy density of the battery.
“Although the emergence of hard carbon electrodes has really boosted the commercialization of sodium-ion batteries, more work needs to be done to make this a reality,” the researchers write in the article titled “Revitalizing sodium-ion batteries via controllable microstructures and advanced electrolytes for hard carbon,” published in eScience . |
