New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Science News
from research organizations

Making sodium-ion batteries that last

Date:
February 15, 2017
Source:
American Chemical Society
Summary:
Lithium-ion batteries have become essential in everyday technology. But these power sources can explode under certain circumstances and are not ideal for grid-scale energy storage. Sodium-ion batteries are potentially a safer and less expensive alternative, but current versions don't last long enough yet for practical use. Now, scientists have developed an anode material that enables sodium-ion batteries to perform at high capacity over hundreds of cycles, according to their report.
Share:
FULL STORY

Lithium-ion batteries have become essential in everyday technology. But these power sources can explode under certain circumstances and are not ideal for grid-scale energy storage. Sodium-ion batteries are potentially a safer and less expensive alternative, but current versions don't last long enough yet for practical use. Now, scientists have developed an anode material that enables sodium-ion batteries to perform at high capacity over hundreds of cycles, according to their report in the journal ACS Nano.

For years, scientists have considered sodium-ion batteries a safer and lower-cost candidate for large-scale energy storage than lithium-ion. But so far, sodium-ion batteries have not operated at high capacity for long-term use. Lithium and sodium have similar properties in many ways, but sodium ions are much larger than lithium ions. This size difference leads to the rapid deterioration of a key battery component. Meilin Liu, Chenghao Yang and colleagues wanted to find an anode material that would give sodium-ion batteries a longer life.

The researchers developed a simple approach to making a high-performance anode material by binding an antimony-based mineral onto sulfur-doped graphene sheets. Incorporating the anode into a sodium-ion battery allowed it to perform at 83 percent capacity over 900 cycles. The researchers say this is the best reported performance for a sodium-ion battery with an antimony-based anode material. To ultimately commercialize their technology, they would need to scale up battery fabrication while maintaining its high performance.


Story Source:

Materials provided by American Chemical Society. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Xunhui Xiong, Guanhua Wang, Yuwei Lin, Ying Wang, Xing Ou, Fenghua Zheng, Chenghao Yang, Jeng-Han Wang, Meilin Liu. Enhancing Sodium Ion Battery Performance by Strongly Binding Nanostructured Sb2S3 on Sulfur-Doped Graphene Sheets. ACS Nano, 2016; 10 (12): 10953 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.6b05653

Cite This Page:

American Chemical Society. "Making sodium-ion batteries that last." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 February 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215101441.htm>.
American Chemical Society. (2017, February 15). Making sodium-ion batteries that last. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 18, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215101441.htm
American Chemical Society. "Making sodium-ion batteries that last." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215101441.htm (accessed March 18, 2024).

Explore More

from ScienceDaily

RELATED STORIES