“Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) represent a viable substitute to lithium-ion
batteries due to their affordability and resource abundance. For SIBs,
antimony (Sb) shows potential as anode material but is impeded by the high
volumetric variations. Here the challenges of Sb sodium storage by
introducing the nanostructured Cu substrate for enhanced Sb adhesion and
morphology optimization is addressed, which is realized by fused deposition
modeling (FDM) printing of Cu substrate, subsequent high-temperature
sintering, and electrodeposition of Sb. In SIBs, the Sb deposited on three
dimensional (3D) printed Cu substrate performs improved cycling stability
compared with that of Sb@Cu with commercial Cu foil substrate, which can
be attributed to the nanostructure of the 3D-Cu substrate. Such architecture
of 3D-Cu induces the generation of pine-leaf-like Sb clusters to promote
stability and kinetics, and it aids the adhesion between the Sb cluster and
3D-Cu substrate for preventing the Sb detachment and restructuring the Sb
cluster to the robust porous ligament-channel Sb framework. The morphology
evolution, (de)sodiation mechanism, and gas evolution are explored by ex situ
scanning electron microscope, operando X-ray diffraction, and operando
differential electrochemical mass spectrometry separately. The developed
Sb@3D-Cu anode offers a flexible pathway for constructing 3D-printed
self-supported electrodes for SIBs.”
Paper published to Advanced Functional Materials 15 January 2024 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adfm.202310563