Open AccessCeO 2 quantum‐dots engineering 3D carbon architectures toward dendrite‐free Na anode and reversible Te cathode for high‐performance Na‐Te batteries
Author(s) -
Liu Yangjie,
Li Junwei,
Hu Xiang,
Yuan Jun,
Zhong Guobao,
Zhang Lu,
Chen Junxiang,
Zhan Hongbing,
Wen Zhenhai
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
infomat
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2567-3165
DOI - 10.1002/inf2.12343
Subject(s) - anode , cathode , battery (electricity) , materials science , electrochemistry , tellurium , nanotechnology , sodium ion battery , bifunctional , nanowire , chemical engineering , quantum dot , electrode , catalysis , chemistry , faraday efficiency , metallurgy , physics , power (physics) , engineering , quantum mechanics , biochemistry
Abstract Sodium‐tellurium (Na‐Te) battery, thanks to high theoretical capacity and abundant sodium source, has been envisaged as one promising battery technology, its practical application yet faces daunting challenges regarding how to mitigate the critical issues of uncontrollable dendrites growth at Na anode and polytellurides shuttling effect at Te cathode. We here report an elaborative design for fabrication of microsphere skeleton nanohybrids with three‐dimensional (3D) hierarchical porous carbon loading CeO 2 quantum dots (CeO 2 ‐QDs/HPC), which feature highly favorable properties of sodiophilic and catalysis for hosting sodium and tellurium, respectively. The systematic investigations coupling with first‐principle calculations demonstrate the CeO 2 ‐QDs/HPC not only offers favorable structure and abundant electrocatalytic sites for facilitating interconversion between Te and Na x Te as a cathode host, but also can function as dendrite inhibitor anode host for reversible sodium electro‐plating/deposition. Such Na‐Te battery exhibits admiring electrochemical performance with an impressive specific capacity of 392 mAh g −1 , a long cycling stability over 1000 cycles, as well as remarkably high energy density of 192 Wh kg −1 based on the total mass of anode and cathode. Such proof‐of‐concept bifunctional host design for active electrode materials can render a new insight and direction to the development of high‐performance Na‐Te batteries.