A research team led by a group from Peking University has designed a new 3D carbon monolith, Hex-C₅₇, using 5–7 nanoribbons as the building block, for use asan anode material for sodium-ion batteries.A paper on their work appears in the Journal of Power Sources.

Motivated by the successful synthesis of three-dimensional (3D) graphene monoliths, tremendous effort has been devoted to the design of 3D porous metallic carbon allotropes with rich topology by assembling various nanoribbons for the anode materials of metal-ion batteries in recent years.

… With the advantages of intrinsic metallicity, mechanical ductility, and ordered pores, Hex-C₅₇ is a highly promising anode material for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs).

—Sun et al.

The researchers reported that calculations of the electrochemical properties show that Hex-C₅₇ possesses:

• a high reversible gravimetric capacity (334.69 mAhg⁻¹) and volumetric capacity (314.61 mAhcm⁻³);

• a small volume change (1.45%);

• very low diffusion barriers (0.046–0.070 eV); and

• a low average open-circuit voltage (0.18 V).

Resources

• Wei Sun, Dongyuan Ni, Changsheng Hou, Qian Wang, Yoshiyuki Kawazoe, Puru Jena (2023) “A new 3D porous metallic carbon allotrope composed of 5–7 nanoribbons as an anode material for sodium-ion batteries,” Journal of Power Sources, Volume 584, 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2023.233594