Fabrication of thin sheets of the sodium superionic conductor Na5YSi4O12 with tape casting

All-solid-state sodium batteries (ASSNBs), which combine the benefits of high safety and low cost, are expected to be an alternative or complementary storage technology to lithium ion batteries. Herein, we developed an aqueous tape casting technique for the continuous fabrication of ceramic sheets made of silicate-based Na5YSi4O12 (NYS) Na+ ion superionic conductor for the first time. After sintering, the ceramics showed a total conductivity of 1.0 mS cm−1 at room-temperature, low total activation energy of 0.30 eV, and wide electrochemical window of over 8 V. The critical current density of NYS tape against Na-metal electrodes can reach 2.2 mA cm−2 and the galvanostatic cycling time is over 280 h under 0.8 mA cm−2 and 0.8 mAh cm−2. The obtained tape has high crystalline purity, dense microstructure, favorable mechanical properties (hardness H of 2 GPa and elastic modulus E of 45 GPa). This work not only highlights the potential of the scarcely studied silicate-based NYS ionic conductor as a functional separator, but also presents a cost-efficient and eco-friendly continuous fabrication using the aqueous tape casting technique, thus being expected to boost the practical application of NYS as solid-state electrolyte in ASSNBs.