Development of Sodium-Ion Rechargeable Battery Using Sodium Cobalt Phosphate Cathode

Lithium-ion batteries are the most popular kind of rechargeable batteries accommodate in portable electronic devices up to date. As the Lithium deposits are depleting the cost of Lithium-ion batteries is increasing. Sodium- ion batteries can be introduced as an alternative technology which can replace expensive Lithium-ion batteries. Sodium sources are highly abundant and therefore Sodium-ion batteries could be made cheaper than Lithium-ion batteries. A number of cathode materials which were accommodated in Lithium-ion batteries have also been tested as cathode materials for Sodium-ion batteries. This research was based on a Sodium-ion battery which cathode was prepared using Sodium cobalt phosphate. The cathode material was prepared using a simple solid-state reaction between Cobalt (II) oxide and Sodium phosphate. The prepared material was characterized using powder XRD. Chargedischarge cycles, cyclic voltammetry analyzing, impedance curve matching to obtain equivalent circuit was used in order to analyze the performance of the prepared cathode in the battery. The discharge capacity of the cathode was calculated as 9.58 mA h g-1. The cyclic voltammetry curve has shown that an oxidation and reduction processes involved in the battery cycle but the battery cycle was not completely reversible. KEYWORDS: Rechargeable batteries, Sodium cobalt oxide, cyclic voltammetry, charge-discharge cycles.