EPFL Develops Graphene-Doped Sodium Batteries

To improve the energy storage and service life of sodium batteries, scientists at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed a new anode structure using graphene-doped sodium. They believe that this new structure anode could potentially overcome some of the fundamental issues in increasing storage capacity and the lifetime of sodium-ion batteries.

Recently, concerns about the many materials present in typical lithium-ion batteries have been well documented. Battery suppliers, car manufacturers, and other participants are collaborating with research institutions around the world to develop energy storage that relies on more abundant materials solutions.

EPFL campus on the shore of Lake Geneva image

One option that has already seen limited commercial uptake in the stationary storage segment is sodium-ion technology. Because the content of sodium is much richer than lithium, and the risk of fire of this battery chemical composition is much lower, it has several advantages. But sodium also has much lower energy density than lithium, which has so far limited uptake, particularly in the electric vehicle and consumer electronics segments, where the physical size of the battery is a deciding factor.

EPFL scientists say that their latest research may open up new ways to increase the capacity of graphene-doped sodium batteries. "Lithium is becoming a critical material as it is used extensively in cell-phones and car batteries, while, in principle, sodium could be a much cheaper, more abundant alternative," says Ferenc Simon, a visiting scientist in the group of László Forró at EPFL. "This motivated our quest for a new battery architecture: sodium doped graphene."

One challenge for increasing the capacity of sodium-ion batteries is that sodium particles cannot be intercalated well into the graphite electrodes commonly used in lithium-ion batteries. By replacing graphite with graphene (both are forms of carbon, graphite has a crystalline structure while graphene is a single layer of atoms), they were able to successfully apply sodium to the material.

The team used a chemical process that relied on liquid ammonia as a catalyst to drive the reaction and was able to produce a material consisting of several layers of graphene with high sodium content. They published their research method in Ultralong Spin Lifetime in Light Alkali Atom Doped Graphene, published in ACS Nano.

This material also opens up potential new avenues in the field of spintronics, important in transistors and data storage applications. Although this is a very early-stage discovery, the scientists working with EPFL are confident of its commercial potential. "Our material can be synthesized on industrial scales and still retains its excellent properties," says Simon, who is the lead author of the paper.

However, the EPFL team acknowledged that there is still a lot more work to be done to develop an actual device using the technology of graphene-doped sodium batteries. “But with the almost exponential growth in demand for batteries, the study opens up very promising possibilities for innovation," they conclude.

 

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