Revisiting the sodium-ion storage capability of hard carbon in carbonate-based electrolytes via a sodium-metal-free protocol

Common evaluation methodology of sodium(Na)-containing two-electrode or three-electrode configurations overlooks the interference from highly reactive Na metal,leading to the underestimation or inconsistent performance of low-potential hard carbon(HC)electrodes.Herein,the trap of Na metal was systematically investigated with or without applied current,uncovering its inadequacy as the reference or counter electrode in different configurations.A Na-metal-free three-electrode protocol is proposed for evaluating the actual Na^(+)-storage capability of the typical low-potential HC electrode.By avoiding Na crosstalk and precisely controlling the working electrode's potential,the actual electrochemical performance of HC in the carbonate esterbased electrolyte can be recognized with high capacity of 222 mAh g^(-1)at 2 C and 113 mAh g^(-1)at 5 C,correcting the misunderstanding of the inferior performance of HC in coin-type half cells(68%and 50%undervaluation at 2 C and 5 C,respectively).The advanced protocol is expected to reduce misunderstandings or underestimation due to evaluation methods and to guide the development of high-performance battery materials.