Pyrochlore-type oxide: a high-performance material for ultrastable sodium-ion storage
摘要
Sodium-ion batteries hold significant potential for large-scale energy storage applications, primarily because of their impressive energy density. Massive researches on anode materials mainly focus on carbon materials because of their high theoretical capacity and affordability. Nevertheless, the large volume change of carbon materials during the sodium ion intercalation/de-intercalation processes seriously influences their electrochemical properties and limits their practical applications. Finding stable and high performance materials remains a significant challenge in the progress of NIBs development. Herein, a pyrochlore-type oxide (A2B2O7) for sodium storage is successfully synthesized in this work, which adopts a “zigzag” structure of AO6 octahedra and BO4 tetrahedra. Density functional theory calculations and structural characterizations indicate that the material is able to host Na ions in the structure properly and maintains excellent structural stability during the intercalation and deintercalation of Na+, making the pyrochlore-type oxide an excellent Na storage material. Electrochemical measurements indicate that the pyrochlore-type oxide exhibits excellent electrochemical performances and extremely stable sodium storage ability (high capacity of ~250 mAh g-1 at 30 mA g-1, ~85% capacity retention after 25000 cycles at 5 A g-1). In addition, the full cell shows excellent electrochemical performances in all climatic operation temperature ranges from -30 °C to 40 °C (117 mAh g-1 at 40 °C and 103 mAh g-1 at -30 °C). The high reversible capacity, impressive rate capability and outstanding cycling stability demonstrated by pyrochlore-type oxides make them a competitive choice among Na-ion anode materials. This study introduces a new type of pyrochlore-type transition metal oxide for stable Na storage, which shows high capacity, excellent rate performances and extremely long cycling life. This study is expected to significantly advance the development of anode for NIBs.