Editors: | F. Kongoli, F. Marquis, N. Chikhradze, T. Prikhna |
Publisher: | Flogen Star OUTREACH |
Publication Year: | 2019 |
Pages: | 174 pages |
ISBN: | 978-1-989820-10-0 |
ISSN: | 2291-1227 (Metals and Materials Processing in a Clean Environment Series) |
As modern society's demands for energy storage technologies increases, it becomes necessary to develop new approaches to meeting the challenges of the future. One of the most promising areas of current research and development is that of sodium ion batteries (SIB) which potentially offer, in comparison to existing technologies, low cost, environmentally friendly technologies from earth abundant resources. While (SIBs) have many potential applications, they are particularly well suited to stationary storage.[1] In this work, we will offer an overview of SIB technology before exploring key advances and highlighting important factors affecting their properties. In order to do this, we will discuss SIBs in terms of their three most significant components: anodes, electrolytes, and cathodes.
SIB anodes are mainly based on hard carbon materials, due to their attractive combination of low cost and high energy density, though there has also been interest in other systems (e.g. intermetallic alloying materials and metal oxides), as well as interest in exploiting specific electrolyte co-solvation effects so as to enable the use of graphite.[2,4] The SIB research community typically uses organic electrolytes analogous to those developed for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) to exploit their analogous natures. Recently, however, there has also been increasing interest in developing new electrolytes specifically tailored to SIBs, such as optimized liquid and solid electrolytes.[5,6] At the present time, cathodes are one of the most explored (SIB) components - with a plethora of options to choose from, including prussian blue and organic materials. The most promising, however, are polyanionic and layered materials because of their good combinations of electrochemical performance, low cost, stability and available constituents.[1,7,8]
Although interest in SIB technology is only relatively new, when compared to LIBs it has been already developed at the prototyping and demonstrators' levels. A general overview of the most interesting electrode and electrolyte materials for Na-ion batteries - with a strong focus on those related to the current prototypes - will be presented. By examining this topic in detail, we will demonstrate the considerable potential of this new technology, and highlight some of the most promising opportunities for developing new and improved SIB technologies.