Revisiting Electrolyte Kinetics Differences in Sodium Ion Battery:Are Esters Really Inferior to Ethers?

The ether electrolytes usually outperform ester electrolytes by evaluating sodium-ion batteries(SIBs)rate performance,which is a near-unanimous conclusion of previous studies based on an essential configuration of the half-cell test.However,here we find that contrary to consensus,the ester electrolyte shows better Na storage capability than the ether electrolyte in full cells.An in-depth analysis of three-electrode,symmetric cell,and in situ XRD tests indicates that traditional half-cell test results are unreliable due to interference from Na electrodes.In particular,Na electrodes show a huge stability difference in ester and ether electrolytes,and ester electrolytes suffer more severe interference than ether electrolytes,resulting in the belief that esters are far inferior to ether electrolytes.More seriously,the more accurate three-electrode test would also suffer from Na electrode interference.Thus,a“corrected half-cell test”protocol is developed to shield the Na electrode interference,revealing the very close super rate capability of hard carbon in ester and ether electrolytes.This work breaks the inherent perception that the kinetic properties of ester electrolytes are inferior to ethers in sodium-ion batteries,reveals the pitfalls of half-cell tests,and proposes a new test protocol for reliable results,greatly accelerating the commercialization of sodium-ion batteries.

Pseudo-capacitance of ruthenium oxide/carbon black composites for electrochemical capacitors

Hydrous ruthenium oxide was formed by a new process. The precursor was obtained by mixing the aqueous solutions of RuCl3xH2O and NaHCO3. The addition of NaHCO3 led to the formation of an oxide with extremely fine RuO2 particles forming a porous network structure in the oxide electrode. Polyethylene glycol was added as a controller to partly inhibit the sol-gel reaction. The rate capacitance of 530 F·g^-1 was measured for the powder formed at an optimal annealing temperature of 210℃. Several details concerning this new material, including crystal structure, particle size as a function of temperature, and electrochemical properties, were also reported. In addition, the rate capacitance of the composite electrode reached 800 F·g^-1 after carbon black was added. By using the modified electrode of a RuO2/carbon black composite electrode, the electrochemical capacitor exhibits high energy density and stable power characteristics. The values of specific energy and maximum specific power of 24 Wh·kg^-1 and 4 kW·kg^-1, respectively, are demonstrated for a cell voltage between 0 and 1 V.

Stress-assisted design of stiffened graphene electrode structure toward compact energy storage

The low spatial charge-storage density of porous carbons greatly limits volumetric performance in electrochemical capacitors.An increase of charge-storage density requires structural refinements to balance the trade-offs between the porosity and density of materials,but the limited mechanical properties of carbons usually fail to withstand effective densifying processes and obtain an ideal pore structure.Herein,we design the stiffened graphene of superior bending rigidity,enabling the fine adjustments of pore structure to maximize the volumetric capacitance for the graphene-based electrodes.The inplane crumples on graphene sheets are found to contribute largely to the bending rigidity,which is useful to control the structural evolution and maintain sufficient ion-accessible surface area during the assembling process.This makes the capacitance of stiffening activated graphene keep 98%when the electrode density increases by 769%to reach 1.13 g cm^(-3) after mechanical pressure,an excellent volumetric energy density of 98.7 Wh L^(-1) in an ionic-liquid electrolyte is achieved.Our results demonstrate the role of intrinsic material properties on the performance of carbon-based electrodes for capacitive energy storage.

Structural Changes of Activated Carbon Electrodes for EDLCs in the Manufacturing Process

Supercapacitors,or electric double-layer capacitors(EDLCs),are the new generation of energy storage devices to store electrical charges and provide high power densities and long cyclic life compared to other storage devices.EDLC mainly consists of activated carbon electrodes and an electrolyte,and the performance of EDLC depends on the activated carbon electrodes.In this work,the structural changes of activated carbon electrodes are analyzed using commercial 2.7 V/9500F EDLCs in its manufacturing process.It is found that there is no significant change in morphology and crystal structure of the activated carbon,but its specific surface area(SSA)reduced greatly.The SSA of activated carbon was decreased by 23%after they were manufactured or converted into electrodes and finally retained only 40%of SSA after the capacitance test.Besides,the SSA of the positive electrodes was found to decrease critically than that of the negative electrodes.The SSA of the external positive electrodes is only 14.3%after fl oating test at 65℃.