PME SPECIAL SEMINAR SERIES: Enabling Next-Generation High-Performing Sodium Batteries

The increasing energy demands of society today have led to pursue alternative energy storage systems that can fulfill rigorous requirements like cost-effectiveness and high storage capacities. Based fundamentally on earth-abundant sodium sources, sodium–based batteries are a promising solution in applications where existing lithium-ion technology remains less economically viable, particularly in large-scale stationary systems such as grid-level storage. Although simply replacing lithium with sodium in current lithium-ion batteries is not a viable solution due to deteriorating electron transfer in conventional intercalation cathodes, sodium is highly attractive when leveraging other battery chemistries due to its unique redox reactions. Emerging high-energy sodium batteries, such as sodium-sulfur batteries, present a series of fundamental materials challenges, hindering their widespread applications. In this talk, I will present a series of versatile strategies to realize diverse high-energy sodium battery systems through multi-faceted tactical regulations of the electrode-electrolyte interface, electrode structural design, and electrolyte engineering.

<a href="https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/95757105444?pwd=VUpDVUh1QjdnOXNwTTRPSTlFSTdx…; Zoom Link </a>