Sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) as a high-capacity material for next-generation sodium-ion capacitors

Pawel Jeżowski (1, 2, 3) , Olivier Crosnier (1, 2) , Thierry Brousse (1, 2)

1 IMN - Institut des Matériaux Jean Rouxel
2 RS2E - Réseau sur le stockage électrochimique de l'énergie
3 PUT - Poznan University of Technology

Energy storage is an integral part of the modern world. One of the newest and most interesting concepts is the internal hybridization achieved in metal-ion capacitors. In this study, for the first time we used sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) as a sacrificial material for the preparation of next-generation sodium-ion capacitors (NICs). NaBH 4 is a material with large irreversible capacity of ca. 700 mA h g −1 at very low extraction potential close to 2.4 vs Na + /Na 0 . An assembled NIC cell with the composite-positive electrode (activated carbon/NaBH 4 ) and hard carbon as the negative one operates in the voltage range from 2.2 to 3.8 V for 5,000 cycles and retains 92% of its initial capacitance. The presented NIC has good efficiency >98% and energy density of ca. 18 W h kg −1 at power 2 kW kg −1 which is more than the energy (7 W h kg −1 at 2 kW kg −1 ) of an electrical double-layer capacitor (EDLC) operating at voltage 2.7 V with the equivalent components as in NIC. Tin phosphide (Sn 4 P 3 ) as a negative electrode allowed the reaching of higher values of the specific energy density 33 W h kg −1 (ca. four times higher than EDLC) at the power density of 2 kW kg −1 , with only 1% of capacity loss upon 5,000 cycles and efficiency >99%.

Mots clés: sodium-ion capacitors; sacrificial salt; sodium inorganic salt; pre-sodiation; composite carbon electrode

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Pawel Jeżowski, Olivier Crosnier, Thierry Brousse. Sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) as a high-capacity material for next-generation sodium-ion capacitors. Open Chemistry, 2021, 19 (1), pp.432-441. ⟨10.1515/chem-2021-0040⟩. ⟨hal-03266196⟩