Purifying the Phase of NaTi₂(PO₄)₃ for Enhanced Na⁺ Storage Properties

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are increasingly on demand owning to their prospect as an inexpensive alternative to Li-ion batteries. However, designing electrode materials with satisfactory rate capacity performance requires high electron transport and Na⁺ conductivity, which is extremely challenging. Herein, we report a hexadecylamine (HDA)-mediated synthesis of NaTi₂(PO₄)₃ (NTP) electrodes via one-step solvothermal process. The addition of HDA material (1) enables the formation of a carbon coating that improves the electron conductivity and (2) importantly serves as a structure-directing agent reducing the NTP-impurity phases in which the transport of Na⁺ ions are sluggish. As a result, the synthesized NTP anode delivers superior rate of capacity retention of 77.8% under the 100-fold increase in current densities. Moreover, outstanding specific capacity of 117.9 mAh g^-1 at 0.5 C and capacity retention of 88.6% after 1500 cycles at 1 C can be obtained. The findings of this work provide new opportunity to design SIBs electrodes with superior electrical and ionic conductivity.