Single-Atom Yttrium Engineering Janus Electrode for Rechargeable Na-S Batteries

Erhuan Zhang; Xiang Hu; Lingzhe Meng; Min Qiu; Junxiang Chen; Yangjie Liu; Guiyu Liu; Zechao Zhuang; Xiaobo Zheng; Lirong Zheng; Yu Wang; Wei Tang; Zhouguang Lu; Jiatao Zhang; Zhenhai Wen; Dingsheng Wang; Yadong Li

doi:10.1021/jacs.2c07655

Single-Atom Yttrium Engineering Janus Electrode for Rechargeable Na-S Batteries

J Am Chem Soc. 2022 Oct 19;144(41):18995-19007. doi: 10.1021/jacs.2c07655. Epub 2022 Oct 10.

Authors

Erhuan Zhang¹, Xiang Hu², Lingzhe Meng³, Min Qiu², Junxiang Chen², Yangjie Liu², Guiyu Liu⁴, Zechao Zhuang¹, Xiaobo Zheng¹, Lirong Zheng⁵, Yu Wang⁶, Wei Tang⁷, Zhouguang Lu⁴, Jiatao Zhang³, Zhenhai Wen², Dingsheng Wang¹, Yadong Li^{1

8

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Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Design and Assembly of Functional Nanostructures, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou 350002, China.
³ Beijing Key Laboratory of Construction-Tailorable Advanced Functional Materials and Green Applications, Experimental Center of Advanced Materials, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Photonic-Thermal-Electrical Energy Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁵ Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁶ Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facilities, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai 201204, China.
⁷ School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, Shaanxi, China.
⁸ College of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
⁹ Key Laboratory of Functional Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241002, China.

PMID: 36214519
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.2c07655

Abstract

The development of rechargeable Na-S batteries is very promising, thanks to their considerably high energy density, abundance of elements, and low costs and yet faces the issues of sluggish redox kinetics of S species and the polysulfide shuttle effect as well as Na dendrite growth. Following the theory-guided prediction, the rare-earth metal yttrium (Y)-N₄ unit has been screened as a favorable Janus site for the chemical affinity of polysulfides and their electrocatalytic conversion, as well as reversible uniform Na deposition. To this end, we adopt a metal-organic framework (MOF) to prepare a single-atom hybrid with Y single atoms being incorporated into the nitrogen-doped rhombododecahedron carbon host (Y SAs/NC), which features favorable Janus properties of sodiophilicity and sulfiphilicity and thus presents highly desired electrochemical performance when used as a host of the sodium anode and the sulfur cathode of a Na-S full cell. Impressively, the Na-S full cell is capable of delivering a high capacity of 822 mAh g^-1 and shows superdurable cyclability (97.5% capacity retention over 1000 cycles at a high current density of 5 A g^-1). The proof-of-concept three-dimensional (3D) printed batteries and the Na-S pouch cell validate the potential practical applications of such Na-S batteries, shedding light on the development of promising Na-S full cells for future application in energy storage or power batteries.