The picture shows the structure of symmetric sodium-ion battery based on the inorganic-organic hybrid tetrasodium salt molecule (on the left) and the 30 Ah soft pack sodium-ion battery based on the high specific energy manganese-based oxide cathode and in-situ pre-sodium hard carbon cathode developed by Chen Jun's team (on the right)

Chen Jun's team at Nankai University, with more than ten years of dedicated research, has made a breakthrough in key electrode materials and control mechanisms for sodium-ion batteries, paving the way for the development of high-performance sodium-ion batteries.

Electrical Energy Storage (EES) is becoming increasingly important when it comes to the sustainable development of renewable energy. Clean energy innovation is gaining momentum in today’s world, which indicates that humankind is entering the TWh era. Among the various methods of energy storage, lithium-ion batteries have taken a dominant position in portable electronic devices and new energy vehicles.

Chen Jun’s research team brought forward the structural design principles of micro-nano structures of key electrode materials in sodium-ion batteries and the electrochemical reaction system structure under the synergistic induction of voltage/electrolytes, and constructed ultra-high specific energy manganese-based oxide cathode and ultra-fast sodium ion transport capacity of porous micro-nano carbon coated polyanionic cathode, high capacity metal-sulfur compound cathode and in situ pre-sodium fast reversible de-embedded sodium hard carbon cathode. The method has helped develop a new symmetric organic sodium-ion battery based on inorganic-organic hybrid sodium salts. What has been accomplished so far has offered significant theoretical and experimental supports for the development of high-performance sodium-ion batteries to promote the energy storage performance of sodium-ion batteries.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has recently officially announced the winners of the 2020 Outstanding Achievements in Scientific Research (Science and Technology) in higher education institutions. The research project entitled Key Electrode Materials and Work Mechanism of Sodium-Ion Batteries led by Chen Jun has obtained the first prize of Natural Science of the award.

While committing themselves to foundational research, Chen Jun’s team is prompting scientific achievements, which were granted several Chinese invention patents, to be applied in real practice with full efforts. Currently, a national enterprise technology center has been built to carry out industry-university-research cooperation, thanks to Chen Jun’s team and Tianjin EV Energies Co., Ltd., Sunwoda Electronic Co., Ltd., Guangdong Jia Yuan Tech., LEOCH International Technology Limited Inc. and other well-known battery companies. Furthermore, Nankai University-Bohai New Area (Cangzhou) Green Chemical Research Institute was established with a joint effort between Chen’s team and Cangzhou Government in Hebei, and some key electrode materials for sodium batteries are undergoing pilot-scale experimentation and transformation of scientific and technological achievements to serve development of  Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.

(Reported by Junhui Wu, translated by Meixu Wu, edited by Daniel Stefan and JianjingYun)