Sodium-based material yields stable alternative to lithium-ion batteries

Science Daily  December 6, 2021
In earlier sodium batteries the anode would grow dendrites that can cause the battery to electrically short and even catch fire or explode. A team of researchers in the US (UT Austin, Los Alamos National Laboratory) developed a new anode material, sodium antimony telluride intermetallic — Na metal composite (NST-Na), by rolling a thin sheet of sodium metal onto an antimony telluride powder, folding it over on itself, and repeating many times. This process results in a very uniform distribution of sodium atoms that makes it less likely to form dendrites or surface corrosion than existing sodium metal anodes. This makes the battery more stable and allows faster charging, comparable to a lithium-ion battery’s charge rate. It has a higher energy capacity than existing sodium-ion batteries. Their calculations showed that the uniqueness of NST lies in the thermodynamic stability of the Na atoms (rather than clusters) on its surface that leads to planar wetting, and in its own stability that prevents decomposition during cycling…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE