Beyond Lithium: Redesigning Sodium-Ion Architectures with Sn-Based Anodes via Streamlined Fabrication Techniques

Current lithium-/sodium-ion batteries (LIBs/SIBs) are unable to meet the rapidly-growing energy demand, and one of the major reasons originates from the limited specific capacity of carbonaceous anode materials. Therefore, manufacturers and researchers are shifting their focus towards materials with greater specific capacities. Among these materials, Sn has garnered increasing attention owing to its outstanding specific capacity in both LIBs (994 mAh/g) and SIBs (847 mAh/g) and excellent compatibility in both battery chemistries, showing great potential as one of the next-generation anode candidates.Nonetheless, its commercial use is significantly impeded by the capacity degradation during cycling. This degradation primarily results from the anode pulverization, triggered by the huge volume changes during charging and discharging. To address this problem, a novel nanostructured free-standing Sn-based ribbon is developed via a fast, one-step and solvent-free melt spinning process, and can be directly applied as anode, without the need of conventional electrode making and use of current collector. The anode pulverization issue has been significantly mitigated by the well-designed nanostructures and alloy phases, as well as other effective optimization strategies. As a result, the ribbon anode has been demonstrated in LIBs and SIBs and shown substantial improvements in specific capacity, cycle life, and rate capabilities.
In this talk, we will provide a brief overview of the melt spinning technique and some of our recent work in the development of ribbon anodes. We hope these findings can offer new insights into developing “next-generation” high-performance alloy-based anode materials.