Designing an All-Solid-State Sodium-Carbon Dioxide Battery Enabled by Nitrogen-Doped Nanocarbon.

Hu, Xiaofei; Joo, Paul Hyunggyu; Matios, Edward; Wang, Chuanlong; Luo, Jianmin; Yang, Kesong; Li, Weiyang · Nano Lett · 2020

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

All-solid-state sodium-carbon dioxide (Na-CO<sub>2</sub>) battery is an emerging technology that effectively utilizes the greenhouse gas, CO<sub>2</sub>, for energy storage with the virtues of minimized electrolyte leakage and suppressed Na dendrite growth for the Na metal anode. However, the sluggish reduction/evolution reactions of CO<sub>2</sub> on the solid electrolyte/CO<sub>2</sub> cathode interface have caused premature battery failure. Herein, nitrogen (N)-doped nanocarbon derived from metal-organic frameworks is designed as a cathode catalyst to solve this challenge. The porous and highly conductive N-doped nanocarbon possesses superior uptake and binding capability with CO<sub>2</sub>, which significantly accelerates the CO<sub>2</sub> electroreduction and promotes the formation of thin sheetlike discharged products (200 nm in thickness) that can be easily decomposed upon charging. Accordingly, reduced discharge/charge overpotential, high discharge capacity (>10 000 mAh g<sup>-1</sup>), long cycle life, and high energy density (180 Wh kg<sup>-1</sup> in pouch cells) are achieved at 50 °C.