Oriented Porous NASICON 3D Framework via Freeze-Casting for Sodium-Metal Batteries

Abstract

Sodium-metal batteries are promising candidates for low-cost, large-format energy storage systems. However, sodium-metal batteries suffer from high interfacial resistance between the electrodes and the solid electrolyte, leading to poor electrochemical performance. We demonstrate a sodium superionic conductor (NASICON) with an oriented porous framework of sodium aluminum titanium phosphate (NATP) fabricated by the freeze-casting technique, which shows excellent properties as a solid electrolyte. Using X-ray computed tomography, we confirm the uniform low-tortuosity channels present along the thickness of the scaffold. We infiltrated the porous NATP scaffolds with sodium vanadium phosphate (NVP) cathode nanoparticles achieving mass loadings of ∼3-4 mg cm^-2, which enables short sodium ion diffusion path lengths. For the resulting hybrid cell, we achieved a capacity of ∼90 mAh g^-1 at a specific current of 50 mA g^-1 (∼300 Wh kg^-1) for over 100 cycles with ∼94% capacity retention. Our study offers valuable insights for the design of hybrid solid electrolyte-cathode active material structures to achieve improved electrochemical performance through low-tortuosity ion transport networks.

Keywords: NASICON; freeze-casting; ice templating; sodium aluminum titanium phosphate; sodium-metal batteries; solid electrolyte.