3D Porous Self-Standing Sb Foam Anode with a Conformal Indium Layer for Enhanced Sodium Storage
Xiaoyong Fan, Zhen Jiang, Long Huang, Xinxin Wang, Jiaxing Han, Ruibo Sun, Lei Gou, Lin Li, Yuan‐Li Ding
Abstract
Antimony (Sb) has been considered as a promising anode for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) because of its high theoretical capacity and moderate working potential but suffers from the dramatic volume variations (∼250%), an unstable electrode/electrolyte interphase, active material exfoliation, and a continuously increased interphase impedance upon sodiation and desodiation processes. To address these issues, we report a unique three-dimensional (3D) porous self-standing foam electrode built from core-shelled Sb@In2O3 nanostructures via a continuous electrodepositing strategy coupled with surface chemical passivation. Such a hierarchical structure possesses a robust framework with rich voids and a dense protection layer (In2O3), which allow Sb nanoparticles to well accommodate their mechanical strain for efficiently avoiding electrode cracks and pulverization with a stable electrode/electrolyte interphase upon sodiation/desodiation processes. When evaluated as an anode for SIBs, the prepared nanoarchitectures exhibit a high first reversible capacity (641.3 mA h g–1) and good cyclability (456.5 mA h g–1 after 300 cycles at 300 mA g–1), along with superior high rate capacity (348.9 mA h g–1 even at 20 A g–1) with a first Coulomb efficiency as high as 85.3%. This work could offer an efficient approach to improve alloying-based anode materials for promoting their practical applications.