Abstract
Transport electrification and grid storage hinge largely on fast-charging capabilities of Li- and Na-ion batteries, but anodes such as graphite with plating issues drive the scientific focus towards anodes with slopped storage potentials. Here we report fast charging of ampere-hour-level full Na-ion batteries within about 9 minutes for continuous 3,000 cycles based on hard carbon anodes. These anodes, in addition to displaying a sloped storage voltage, provide capacity at a nearly constant voltage just above the plating potential, without observing Na-metal plating under high areal capacity. Comparing the electrochemical behaviour of Li and Na in hard carbon through experimental and computational techniques, a unified storage mechanism relying on the dimensions of wedge nanopores and drawing parallels with underpotential deposition for metals is brought forward, providing a rational guide for achieving fast storage in hard carbon anodes.
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Change history
10 January 2024
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01459-0
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFB2402500), National Natural Science Foundation of China (52122214 and 52072403), Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2020006), Jiangsu Province Carbon Peak and Neutrality Innovation Program (Industry tackling on prospect and key technology BE2022002-5), and financial support is greatly acknowledged from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research under the VENI grant number 18123 and VICI grant number 16122.
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Y.X.L., M.W. and Y-S.H. designed this work, Y.Q.L. synthesized the carbon electrodes and carried out the electrochemical experiments and materials characterization, A.V. performed first-principle calculations, P.O. performed mesoscale phase-field modelling simulations and Q.Z., Q.M. and J.Z. prepared the 26700-type cells. Y.Q.L., A.V., Y.X.L., P.O., M.W. and Y.-S.H. wrote the paper. All the authors participated in analysis of the experimental data and discussions of the results and in preparing the paper.
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Q.Z., Q.M., J.Z., X.Q. and Y.-S.H. are employed at HiNa Battery Technology Co. Ltd. The other authors declare no competing interests.
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Supplementary Figs. 1–42, Details of simulations, Tables 1–3, Description of Video 1, Note 1 and References.
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The video depicts a Na atom approaching another Na atom. For distances below 4 Å, the Na atoms associate and the Na pair diffuses together for 0.4 ps.
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Li, Y., Vasileiadis, A., Zhou, Q. et al. Origin of fast charging in hard carbon anodes. Nat Energy 9, 134–142 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01414-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01414-5