Issue 16/2016 - Breathable Na-CO2 batteries offer new ideas for clean electric energy

Breathable Na-CO2 batteries provide new ideas
for clean electric energy Recently, the team of Professor Chen Jun of Nankai University has made breakthroughs in the field of room temperature rechargeable Na-CO2 batteries using CO2 breathing, and successfully developed Na-CO2 batteries, which are not only rich in raw materials, convenient to prepare, but also increase the safety of the experimental process, and the relevant research results were published
in German Applied Chemistry.

In the research of Na-CO2 batteries, Chen Jun's research group found through theoretical calculations that the Na-CO2 battery system has a theoretical specific energy of up to 1100Wh/kg, and Na-CO2 batteries are easier to achieve reversible charge and discharge reaction than other metal-carbon dioxide batteries such as Li-CO2, absorb carbon dioxide when discharging, and release carbon dioxide when charging, which is called breathable Na-CO2 battery
.
In this study, a Na-CO2 battery
with excellent performance was constructed using sodium metal sheet as the negative electrode and multi-walled carbon nanotubes treated with tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether as the positive electrode.

In terms of cathode, the chemically modified porous three-dimensional network structure is used to effectively reduce the polarization of the battery and reflect the large-capacity power storage capacity
.
At room temperature, the battery system can be cycled 200 times without obvious attenuation, showing good reversible charge-discharge activity and stability
.
At a high current density of 4A/g, there is still a reversible specific capacity of 4000mAh/g, indicating that this battery has good high-rate discharge performance and can achieve fast charging and discharging
.
These excellent battery properties provide new ideas
for absorbing CO2 at room temperature to generate clean electrical energy.