Na-ion batteries with fast diffusion kinetics

With the current demand for efficient energy storage systems to power large-scale applications, sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) can fulfill this gap due to the cheap and abundant resources of the sodium element.

However, the anode part of SIBs suffers from sluggish kinetic diffusion, which

hinders its practical application. 

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Beyond conventional graphite and hard carbon anodes, designing anode materials with 3D porous channels and well-defined S doping sites could lead to high-performance SIBs. 

We observe a unique sulfurize carbon anode material (C8S) of high structural stability, metallic, high storage capacity (465 mAh g–1), fast ionic mobility (0.06 eV), and small volume change (2%) through first-principles calculations combined with global structure search method and tight binding model. 

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The high electrochemical performance of

the generated structure is due to the unique interaction between sulfur and zigzag graphene nanoribbons, where sulfur atoms act as extra adsorption sites, as well as a pathway for fast ionic diffusion, as revealed by deep-learning potential molecular dynamics and nudged-elastic band methods.

 The average open circuit

voltage (0.64 V) ensures good safety during fast charging rate. These remarkable results make C8S a potential candidate anode for

next-generation SIBs.

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