Designing an All-Solid-State Sodium-Carbon Dioxide Battery Enabled by Nitrogen-Doped Nanocarbon.

All-solid-state sodium-carbon dioxide (Na-CO) battery is an emerging technology that effectively utilizes the greenhouse gas, CO, for energy storage with the virtues of minimized electrolyte leakage and suppressed Na dendrite growth for the Na metal anode. However, the sluggish reduction/evolution reactions of CO on the solid electrolyte/CO cathode interface have caused premature battery failure. Herein, nitrogen (N)-doped nanocarbon derived from metal-organic frameworks is designed as a cathode catalyst to solve this challenge. The porous and highly conductive N-doped nanocarbon possesses superior uptake and binding capability with CO, which significantly accelerates the CO electroreduction and promotes the formation of thin sheetlike discharged products (200 nm in thickness) that can be easily decomposed upon charging. Accordingly, reduced discharge/charge overpotential, high discharge capacity (>10 000 mAh g), long cycle life, and high energy density (180 Wh kg in pouch cells) are achieved at 50 °C.