A 3.8-V earth-abundant sodium battery electrode.

Rechargeable lithium batteries have ushered the wireless revolution over last two decades and are now matured to enable green automobiles. However, the growing concern on scarcity and large-scale applications of lithium resources have steered effort to realize sustainable sodium-ion batteries, Na and Fe being abundant and low-cost charge carrier and redox centre, respectively. However, their performance is limited owing to low operating voltage and sluggish kinetics.

Particle-size effects on the entropy behavior of a LixFePO4 electrode.

The particle-size effects on the thermodynamic properties and kinetic behavior of a Li(x)FePO(4) electrode have a direct influence on the electrode properties. Thus, the development of high-performance Li-ion batteries containing a Li(x)FePO(4) cathode requires a complete understanding of the reaction mechanism at the atomic/nano/meso scale. In this work, we report electrochemical calorimetric and potentiometric studies on Li(x)FePO(4) electrodes with different particle sizes and clarify the particle-size effect on the reaction mechanism based on the entropy change of (de)lithiation.

Magnetic structure and properties of the rechargeable battery insertion compound Na2FePO4F.

The magnetic structure and properties of sodium iron fluorophosphate Na2FePO4F (space group Pbcn), a cathode material for rechargeable batteries, were studied using magnetometry and neutron powder diffraction. The material, which can be described as a quasi-layered structure with zigzag Fe-octahedral chains, develops a long-range antiferromagnetic order below ∼3.4 K.

Sodium manganese fluorosulfate with a triplite structure.

The crystal structure of the NaMnSO4F fluorosulfate phase prepared by low-temperature solid-state synthesis has been solved and refined by the Rietveld analysis of synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data. Isostructural to the naturally occurring triplite family of minerals, this compound crystallizes in monoclinic C2/c symmetry (No. 15) with unit-cell parameters of a = 13.