Research progress of materials and devices for room-temperature Na-ion batteries

Among various electrochemical energy storage technologies, room-temperature Na-ion batteries (NIBs) are regarded as ideal candidates in large-scale energy storage field due to advantages of abundant resources and low material cost in addition to their characteristics of high energy density and long cycle life. Since 2011, the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOP-Chinese Academy of Sciences) has devoted to developing the cost-effective and environmental-safe NIBs, and attained many original achievements in the research of cathode, anode and electrolyte materials, and also developed Na-ion pouch cells with capacities of 1 Ah. For instance, the highly reversible Cu2+/Cu3+ redox was discovered for the first time and the low cost Na-Cu-Fe-Mn-O layered oxide cathodes have been designed accordingly; the anthracite-derived carbon anodes have been exploited via a simple one-step carbonization process with a high performance-to-price ratio; a new type of NaFSI sodium salt was first used in the non-aqueous carbonate electrolyte to significantly improve the performance of electrode materials, etc. This review summarizes the important progress and breakthroughs achieved in IOP-Chinese Academy of Sciences for materials and devices of NIBs. We hope that these contributions conduce to realizing the industrialization of NIBs.