Hard carbon for a high-energy sodium battery

Scientists in Japan demonstrated a hard-carbon electrode that can greatly increase the capacity of a sodium-ion battery. With further work on the long-term performance, the discovery could make sodium-ion batteries better able to compete on energy density with their lithium-ion counterparts.

January 8, 2021 Mark Hutchins

Scientists at TOS made a promising breakthrough in sodium-ion battery chemistry.

Image: Hexen/Wikimedia Commons

From pv magazine International

Sodium-ion batteries are a promising energy storage technology, one that has already seen limited commercialization in the stationary storage segment. And sodium-ion has attracted plenty of attention from researchers, since it offers an alternative to lithium-ion batteries that relies on much cheaper, more abundant materials.

In terms of energy density, sodium-ion technology is a little way behind lithium. This means it is widely seen as impractical for applications such as electric vehicles or consumer electronics, where the size and weight of the battery are a primary concern. A new discovery from scientists at the Tokyo University of Science (TOS), however, could be set to turn this assumption on its head.

A group at the university looked to carbon electrode materials to boost sodium-ion battery capacity, and developed a technique to fabricate a porous, hard carbon anode. The technique is described in the paper New hard-carbon anode material for sodium-ion batteries will solve the lithium conundrum, published in Angewandte Chemie, International Edition.

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