J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2022, Vol. 118: 199-207.DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2022.01.003

• Research Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Three-dimensional Au/carbon nanotube-graphene foam hybrid nanostructure for dendrite free sodium metal anode with long cycle stability

Zhenxin Huang, Zixuan Wang, Bofang Tian, Tingting Xu, Caiyun Ma, Zhuangfei Zhang, Jinhao Zang, Dezhi Kong, Xinjian Li, Ye Wang()   

  1. Key Laboratory of Material Physics, Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Microelectronics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China
  • Received:2021-11-07 Revised:2021-12-25 Accepted:2022-01-08 Published:2022-08-10 Online:2022-02-25
  • Contact: Ye Wang
  • About author:* E-mail address: wangye@zzu.edu.cn (Y. Wang).

Abstract:

Sodium metal anode has been attracting widely research attention due to its large capacity and low electrode potential as the anode of sodium-ion batteries. However, the uncontrollable growth of Na dendrite is one of the critical issues for its real applications. Herein, a three-dimensional (3D) nanostructure composed of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) supported on 3D carbon nanotube-graphene foam (3D CNT-GF) was designed and fabricated as the host of sodium metal anode. Na@3D Au/CNT-GF anode can deliver a Coulombic efficiency of 99.14% and stably cycle for 2600 h at 1 mA cm-2 with 1 mAh cm-2. It can cycle for 300 h at 5 mA cm-2 with 1 mAh cm-2. Detailed results indicate that its excellent electrochemical performance can be attributed to the unique macroporous structure and sodiophilic surface formed by Au NPs guiding the uniform sodium metal deposition enabled a dendrite-free morphology investigated by the ex-situ SEM and in-situ optical microscopy. At last, a full cell was assembled with Na@3D Au/CNT-GF as the anode and Na3V2(PO4)3@C as the cathode. It can deliver a capacity of 84.6 mAh g-1 at 100 mA g-1 after 200 cycles. Our results demonstrate that 3D Au/CNT-GF is a promising sodium metal anode host.

Key words: 3D Au/CNT-GF, Sodiophilic Au NPs, Dendrite free, Uniform deposition, In-situ optical microscopy investigation