Dual Functions of Potassium Antimony(III)‐Tartrate in Tuning Antimony/Carbon Composites for Long‐Life Na‐Ion Batteries

Abstract

Antimony holds a high-specific capacity as a promising anode material for Na-ion batteries (SIBs) and much research is focused on solving the poor cycling stability issue associated with its large volume expansion during alloying/dealloying processes. Here, self-thermal-reduction method is successfully applied to prepare antimony/carbon rods (Sb/C rods) utilizing potassium antimony(III)tartrate (C 8 H 10 O 15 Sb 2 K 2 ) as a dual source of carbon matrix and metallic antimony. According to theory calculations and experiment results, the formation process is explicitly explored as follows: C 8 H 10 O 15 Sb 2 K 2 → Sb 2 O 3 /C → Sb 2 O 3 / Sb/C → Sb/C rods. Notably, organic ligands in C 8 H 10 O 15 Sb 2 K 2 can be gradually turned into amorphous carbon with simultaneous reduction of Sb 3+ to metal Sb. Moreover, potassium chloride acts as an activator and a template during the course of carbonization, and synchronous reduction is introduced. Consequently, an antimony/carbon electrode material denoted as SbOC/C is formed, exhibiting a unique dual-carbon-modified structure and extensive SbOC bridge bonds that give rise to outstanding cycling performance and rate capacity. Specifically, the capacity is maintained at 404 mA h g −1 with 89% retention after 700 cycles at 500 mA g −1 . The low-cost, self-thermal-reduction method and excellent electrode performances of electrode material make it attractive for large-scale energy storage systems.

Ultrahigh Rate Performance of Hollow Antimony Nanoparticles Impregnated in Open Carbon Boxes for Sodium‐Ion Battery under Elevated Temperature

“…Peaks centered at 1639 and 1103 cm −1 could be assigned to the CC and CO stretching vibration signals, respectively . Compared with 3D carbon networks (3D PCN), there emerges a fresh stretching vibration peak at 599 cm −1 in the spectrum of Sb HPs@OCB composite, attributed to the SbOC vibration 15,20a. According to published literatures, the emergence of the powerful chemical bond interaction between antimony nanoparticles and carbon matrix accordingly resulted in the greatly enhanced integrity of Sb HPs@OCB .…”

“…The synthesis procedure of the Sb HPs@OCB composite was compendiously illustrated in Scheme . Here, KCl was utilized both as an activating agent for carbonization and a template for the formation of micrometer‐sized structures . C 4 H 4 KO 7 Sb·1/2H 2 O, a low‐cost and nontoxic coordination compound, was served as Sb resource, and C 6 H 8 O 7 ·H 2 O and PVP‐K30 were employed as chelating agents and carbon precursor to obtain a homogeneous precursor gel and confine the size and morphology of KCl particles .…”

A Facile Carbon Quantum Dot‐Modified Reduction Approach Towards Tunable Sb@CQDs Nanoparticles for High Performance Sodium Storage

“…While the binding energies at 528.0 and 537.4 eV correspond to the Sb 3d 5/2 and Sb 3d 3/2 of Sb 0 . The peak at 530.9 eV can be assigned to O 1s which shifts slightly to higher binding energy owing to the existence of Sb−O−C bond …”

Carbon‐Based Alloy‐Type Composite Anode Materials toward Sodium‐Ion Batteries

“…Antimony (Sb) is a famous anode material for SIBs, which upholds a theoretical capacity of 660 mAh g −1 and convenient cut‐off potential of 0.5–0.8 V versus Na + /Na . The possible electrochemical reaction is Sb + 3Na + +3e − ↔ Na 3 Sb that is similar to LIBs . Although, the massive volume expansion (390% respect to sodiation/desodiation) causes to quick capacity decline which restricts its potential applications .…”