Ultra-Fast-Charging, Long-Duration, and Wide-Temperature-Range Sodium Storage Enabled by Multiwalled Carbon...

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) represent a promising energy storage technology with great safety. Because of their high operating potential, superior structural stability, and prominent thermal stability, polyanion-type phosphates have garnered significant interest in superior prospective cathode materials for SIBs. Nevertheless, the disadvantages of poor intrinsic electronic conductivity, sluggish kinetics, and volume variation during sodiation/desodiation remain great challenges for satisfactory rate performance and cycle stability, which severely hinder their further practical applications. In this work, by adjusting the amounts of pretreated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNT) added intentionally at the beginning of the preparation, biphasic polyanion-type phosphate materials (marked as NFC) are synthesized through a one-pot solid state reaction methodology, which are composed of CNT-interwoven Na₃V₂(PO₄)₂F₃ (NVPF) and a small amount of Na₃V₂(PO₄)₃ (NVP). Benefiting from the improved electronic conductivity and unique composition and structure, the optimized sample (labeled as NFC-2) illustrates exceptional cycle stability and remarkable rate performance. The discharge capacities of the NFC-2 electrode are 114.8 and 78.6 mAh g^-1 tested at 20 and 5000 mA g^-1, respectively. Notably, such an electrode still gives out 75.7% capacity retention upon 10 000 cycles at 5000 mA g^-1. In situ X-ray diffraction analysis demonstrates that the NFC-2 cathode has outstanding structural reversibility during charge/discharge cycles. More importantly, such a biphasic material has achieved impressive electrochemical performance within a wide operating temperature range of -20-50 °C. When temperature is decreased to -20 °C, the NFC-2 electrode still delivers an initial discharge capacity of 102.4 mAh g^-1 and exhibits a remarkable capacity retention of 97.8% even after 500 cycles at 50 mA g^-1. In addition, the sodium-ion full cell assembled by integrating NFC-2 cathode and hard carbon anode shows a satisfying energy density of 431.3 Wh kg^-1 at 20 mA g^-1 with a better long-term cycle performance. The synergistic effect among high energy NVPF, conductive CNT, and stable NVP may lead to the great improvement in the electrochemical sodium storage performance of the NFC-2 sample. Such biphasic polyanion-type phosphate materials will inject new ideas into the material design for SIBs with excellent electrochemical performance and further promote practical applications of this advanced energy storage technology.