Comparison of lithium and sodium intercalation materials

Low abundance of lithium in Earth’s crust and its high participation in overall cost of lithium-ion batteries incited intensive investigation of sodium-ion batteries, in hope that they may become similar in basic characteristics: specific energy and specific power. Furthermore, over the last years the research has been focused on the replacement of organic electrolytes of Li- and Na-ion batteries, by aqueous electrolytes, in order to simplify the production and improve safety of use. In this lecture, some recent results on the selected intercalation materials are presented: layered structure vanadium oxides, olivine and nasicon phosphates, potentially usable in both Li and Na aqueous rechargeable batteries. After their characterization by X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy, the electrochemical behavior was studied by both cyclic voltammetry and hronopotenciometry. By comparing intercalation kinetics and coulombic capacity of these materials in LiNO3 and NaNO3 solutions, it was shown that the following ones: Na1.2V3O8, Na2V6O16/C , NaFePO4/C and NaTi2(PO4)3/C may be used as electrode materials in aqueous alkali-ion batteries.