Toward High‐Areal‐Capacity Electrodes for Lithium and Sodium Ion Batteries

Abstract

In recent decades, extensive nanomaterials and related techniques have been proposed to achieve high capacities surpassing conventional battery electrodes. Nevertheless, most of them show low mass loadings and areal capacities, which deteriorates the cell‐level energy densities and increases cost after the consideration of inactive components in batteries. Achieving high‐areal‐capacity is essential for those advanced materials to move out of laboratories and into practical applications, yet remains challenging due to the decreased mechanical properties and sluggish electrochemical kinetics at elevated mass loadings. In this paper, the previously reported strategies for promoting areal lithium storage performance, including material‐level designs, electrode‐level architecture optimization, and novel manufacturing techniques are reviewed. Sodium‐ion battery electrodes are discussed subsequently, emphatically on its difference with those for lithium storage. Pouch‐cell‐level energy densities based on high‐areal‐capacity electrodes with different thicknesses are also estimated. For each category of these strategies, working principles, advantages, and possible problems are analyzed, with typical examples presented in detail and a summary table comparing the structures and achieved performance. Finally, the features of the high‐areal‐capacity electrodes demonstrated in this review are concluded, and overlooked issues and potential research directions in this field are summarized.

The Progress of Hard Carbon as an Anode Material in Sodium-Ion Batteries

“…Anode materials play an important role in facilitating sodium-ion batteries with outstanding electrochemical performance. The design of novel anode materials with excellent performance and low cost can accelerate the commercialization of sodium-ion batteries [ 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]. Among the many anode electrode materials of sodium-ion batteries, hard carbon materials have the superiority of high capacity, low price, and low working voltage, and their unique structure is conducive to sodium-ion adsorption and reversible embedding/removal, showing excellent sodium storage performance, making them the most likely anode materials to be commercialized [ 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ].…”

Theoretical Prediction of Janus TQ-Graphene as a Metallic Two-Dimensional Carbon Allotrope with Negative Poisson’s Ratios for High Capacity Sodium-Ion Batteries

“…Rechargeable sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are considered attractive alternatives to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for large-scale electrical energy storage due to the huge natural abundance and low cost of sodium. − The primary obstacle to the advancement of SIBs is the lack of appropriate anode materials . Due to their favorable features such as chemical stability, affordability, and eco-friendliness, carbon materials show promise as a viable option for energy storage .…”

Structuring electrodes via acoustic-field-assisted particle patterning for enhanced performance of lithium-ion batteries

“…Such a performance loss is especially severe for electrodes with high tortuosity. [4][5][6][7] Tortuosity measures the average length that an ion travels from the bulk electrolyte to the reaction site at the electrode-electrolyte interface. Based on the relation between tortuosity and ionic diffusivity in a porous electrode, D eff = 3D 0 /s, where s and 3 represent tortuosity and the fraction of pores (assumed lled with electrolyte) in the electrode, respectively; D 0 and D eff represent intrinsic and effective ionic diffusivity, respectively.…”