Rechargeable sodium-ion batteries (SIBs), as the most promising alternative to commercial lithium-ion batteries, have received tremendous attention during the last decade. Among all the anode materials for SIBs, metal sulfides/selenides (MXs) have shown inspiring results because of their versatile material species and high theoretical capacity. They suffer from large volume expansion, however, which leads to bad cycling performance. Thus, methods such as carbon modification, nanosize design, electrolyte optimization, and cut-off voltage control are used to obtain enhanced performance. Here, recent progress on MXs is summarized in terms of arranging the crystal structure, synthesis methods, electrochemical performance, mechanisms, and kinetics. Challenges are presented and effective ways to solve the problems are proposed, and a perspective for future material design is also given. It is hoped that light is shed on the development of MXs to help finally find applications for next-generation rechargeable batteries.

With the unprecedentedly increasing demand for renewable and clean energy sources, the sodium‐ion battery (SIB) is emerging as an alternative or complementary energy storage candidate to the present commercial lithium‐ion battery due to the abundance and low cost of sodium resources. Layered transition metal oxides and Prussian blue analogs are reviewed in terms of their commercial potential as cathode materials for SIBs. The recent progress in research on their half cells and full cells for the ultimate application in SIBs are summarized. In addition, their electrochemical performance, suitability for scaling up, cost, and environmental concerns are compared in detail with a brief outlook on future prospects. It is anticipated that this review will inspire further development of layered transition metal oxides and Prussian blue analogs for SIBs, especially for their emerging commercialization.

Sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs) are attracting increasing attention and considered to be a low‐cost complement or an alternative to lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs), especially for large‐scale energy storage. Their application, however, is limited because of the lack of suitable host materials to reversibly intercalate Na+ ions. Layered transition metal oxides (NaxMO2, M = Fe, Mn, Ni, Co, Cr, Ti, V, and their combinations) appear to be promising cathode candidates for SIBs due to their simple structure, ease of synthesis, high operating potential, and feasibility for commercial production. In the present work, the structural evolution, electrochemical performance, and recent progress of NaxMO2 as cathode materials for SIBs are reviewed and summarized. Moreover, the existing drawbacks are discussed and several strategies are proposed to help alleviate these issues. In addition, the exploration of full cells based on NaxMO2 cathodes and future perspectives are discussed to provide guidance for the future commercialization of such systems.

photocopying process took nearly a century from 1843 until the early 1940s, while the detailed crystal structure of PB was first confirmed as cubic by Ludi and co-workers in 1977, which is now widely accepted. [6] Remarkably, the past four decades have witnessed the exploration of PB in more and more new and totally different, but very promising application areas, reaching from rechargeable batteries [7] to catalysis [8] and biosensors, [9] from optically switchable films in electrochromic devices (smart windows) [10] to a helpful nanomaterial for cancer therapy. [11] Due to their excellent redox activity, low cost, and highly reversible phase transitions during the insertion/extraction process of certain cations, PB and PBAs have also been widely investigated as promising active materials for energy storage devices, especially for commercial sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) beyond other batteries system (potassium-ion batteries, [12,13] lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), [14] lithium-sulfur batteries (LI-S), [15] lithium-air batteries, [16] zinc-air batteries, [17] solid-state batteries, [18] etc.) in large-scale stationary energy storage systems in the near future. [19,20] The chemical formulas of PBAs could be represented asHere, A represents a single alkali metal or alkaline earth metal, or a mixture of these metals, while M 1 and M 2 typically are transition metals bonded by CN − bonds to form a 3D open structure with the capability to host element(s) A inside the crystal structure. □ represents the vacancy that is caused by the loss of an M 2 (CN) 6 group and the occupation by coordination water and interstitial water, the species and ionic radii of which are shown in Figure 2a. [21] With the different species and various ratios of A/M 1 /M 2 , the number of family members could reach more than 100, sharing different crystal phases, including monoclinic, [22,23] rhombohedral, [24,25] cubic, [26,27] tetragonal, [28] hexagonal, [29] etc. According to the amount of redox-active sites for battery application, PB and PBAs could be divided into dual-electron transfer type (DE-PBAs: M 1 and M 2 = Mn, Fe, Co) and single-electron transfer type (SE-PBAs: M 1 = Zn, Ni and M 2 = Fe, Co, Mn) with theoretical specific capacity of 170 and 85 mAh g −1 , respectively. [21] Taking the high average voltage and capacity of the DE-PBAs into consideration, they are promising and competitive, even to the level of LiFePO 4 (a well-known cathode material for the LIBs), for high energy density devices (≈450 Wh kg −1 on the material level). On the other hand, the negligible structural distortion and high conductivity of SE-PBAs make them desirable choices for fast-charging and long-life devices. [20,30] Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) have attracted wide attention for their application in the energy storage and conversion field due to their low cost, facile synthesis, and appreciable electrochemical performance. At the present stage, most research on PBAs is focused on their material-level optimization, whereas their properties in practical b...

The phase-controlled synthesis of metallic and ambient-stable 2D MX 2 (M is Mo or W; X is S) with 1T octahedral coordination will endow these materials with superior performance compared with their semiconducting 2H coordination counterparts. We report a clean and facile route to prepare 1T-MoS 2 and 1T-WS 2 through hydrothermal processing under high magnetic fields. We reveal that the as-synthesized 1T-MoS 2 and 1T-WS 2 are ambient-stable for more than 1 year. Electrochemical measurements show that 1T-MoS 2 performs much better than 2H-MoS 2 as the anode for sodium ion batteries. These results can provide a clean and facile method to prepare ambientstable 1T-phase MX 2 .

The exploration of next-generation sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) is a worldwide concern to replace the current commercial lithium-ion batteries, mitigating the increasing exhaustion of Li resources. Sodium transition metal oxides are...

Recently, room-temperature stationary sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have received extensive investigations for large-scale energy storage systems (EESs) and smart grids due to the huge natural abundance and low cost of sodium. The SIBs share a similar "rocking-chair" sodium storage mechanism with lithium-ion batteries; thus, selecting appropriate electrodes with a low cost, satisfactory electrochemical performance, and high reliability is the key point for the development for SIBs. On the other hand, the carefully chosen elements in the electrodes also largely determine the cost of SIBs. Therefore, earth-abundantmetal-based compounds are ideal candidates for reducing the cost of electrodes. Among all the high-abundance and low-cost metal elements, cathodes containing iron and/or manganese are the most representative ones that have attracted numerous studies up till now. Herein, recent advances on both ironand manganese-based cathodes of various types, such as polyanionic, layered oxide, MXene, and spinel, are highlighted. The structure-function property for the iron-and manganese-based compounds is summarized and analyzed in detail. With the participation of iron and manganese in sodium-based cathode materials, real applications of room-temperature SIBs in large-scale EESs will be greatly promoted and accelerated in the near future.

An “atomic layer‐by‐layer” structure of Co3O4/graphene is developed as an anode material for lithium‐ion batteries. Due to the atomic thickness of both the Co3O4 nanosheets and graphene, the composite exhibits an ultrahigh specific capacity of 1134.4 mAh g−1 and an ultralong life up to 2000 cycles at 2.25 C, far beyond the performances of previously reported Co3O4/C composites.