Abstract
Bridging the energy gap between batteries and capacitors, while in principle delivering a supercapacitor-like high power density and long lifespan, sodium-ion capacitors (SIC) have been considered promising energy storage devices that could be commercialized in the near future due to the natural abundance of sodium sources and the performance superiority of SIC devices. Therefore, in the past decade, substantial research efforts have been devoted to their structure and property improvements. With regard to the electrochemical performance of an ion capacitor, except for the electrode, the composition and structure of the electrolytes are also of great importance. Thus, in this mini review, we present a brief summary of the electrolytes developed recently for high performance SIC, including aqueous, organic, and ionic liquid based electrolytes. The influence factors such as ionic conductivities, electrolyte concentrations, electrochemical stable windows, as well as the cost and safety issues are discussed. Furthermore, the future perspectives and challenges in the science and engineering of new electrolytes are also considered. We hope that this review may be helpful to the energy storage community regarding the electrolytes of advanced SIC systems.
Introduction
With the in-depth development and extensive application of stationary and portable power systems, people have higher and higher requirements on energy storage equipment. At present, the most frequently used secondary power-supply units are batteries and capacitors. Among them, the lithium-ion batteries (LIB) have a high energy density (150–200 W h kg−1) and a low power density (<350 W kg−1) (Han et al., ), while the electrochemical capacitors (EC), especially supercapacitor, usually has a high power density (>10 kW kg−1) and a low energy density (<10 W h kg−1) (Gao et al., ; Zhang et al., 2020). Their respective defectiveness restricts the application in certain areas. To bridge the gap, lithium ion capacitors (LIC) and sodium-ion capacitors (SIC) that have both high energy density and high power density have attracted extensive research interest. However, since the huge exploration of Li resources in portable electronics, electric vehicles, large grids, and the limited reserves of Li resources on earth (Wang et al., 2015), the development of the analogous SIC comes to be a well acknowledged solution due to the abundant sodium reserves and the reasonable redox potential (Na/Na+ = −2.7 V) (Zhang et al., 2020). Moreover, sodium does not react with aluminum, making it possible to replace the expensive current collector copper. It is also well known that the Na+ and Li+ ions share similar physical/chemical properties (Mendes et al., ; Jia et al., ) and some of the conclusions involving LIC are also applicable to SIC (Ding et al., ). However, the radius of a Na+ (1.02Å) is larger than that of a Li+ (0.76Å). The electrochemical behavior of Na+ in the electrolyte is different from that of Li+ under the same conditions (Qu et al., ; Gao et al., ). As a result, it is not difficult to understand that the exploration of high performance SIC requires new effort and investment.
A SIC shares the same structure as a LIC, which is composed of mainly anode, cathode, electrolyte, separator, and collector (Jia et al., ; Figure 1A). Since the majority of research work has been centered on the material and structure of electrodes, the study on electrolyte of SIC is relatively limited. However, an electrolyte is the carrier and transport channel of charges, and the influence of electrolyte on the final device performance can never be overlooked. Generally, the electrolyte applied in SIC consists of sodium salt and solvent, and sometimes certain additives. The optimization of electrolyte for desirable electrochemical properties can be realized by careful selection and rational matching of these components.
Figure 1
In this mini review, the properties of different electrolytes, including the composition and concentration, cost and safety issues, as well as their influences on SIC performance are presented. The prospect and challenge of the future development of SIC electrolytes are also reviewed.
Sodium Salts
Sodium salt is one of the most important components of SIC electrolyte that is originally selected on the basis of lithium salt by replacing the cations. However, their chemical stability, electrochemical activity, and ionic conductivity (IC) are different. The general principles for selecting an appropriate SIC electrolyte salt include: (i) It should have a high solubility in the corresponding solvent to produce sufficient charges; (ii) Stable in a certain voltage range, no decomposition and redox reactions; (iii) Good chemical stability and will not react with the solvent, electrode, and collector; (iv) Environmental friendliness, safe, non-toxic, and so on.
Since the cation is fixed to Na+, the choice of anions becomes pretty important. As can be seen from Table 1, anions largely determine the properties of the salts. During the charge/discharge process, the anion is most often the electrolyte part that is oxidized first. Thus, it determines the upper limit of electrochemical stability window (ESW) (Jónsson and Johansson,
Table 1
| Salt | Mw [g mol−1] | Tm [°C] | σmax [mS cm−1] (solvent) | References | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Na2SO4 | 142.0 | 884 | 125 (H2O) | Wu et al., 2015 | ||
| NaClO4 | 122.4 | 468 | 180 (H2O) | Wu et al., 2015 | ||
| NaBF4 | 109.8 | 384 | 1.5 (PC) | Herlem et al., | ||
| NaPF6 | 167.9 | 300 | 6.8 (EC/DMC) | Bhide et al., | ||
| NaTf | 172.1 | 248 | 3.7 (EC/DMC) | Bhide et al., | ||
| NaTFSI | 303.1 | 257 | 8.8 (PC) | Vogl et al., 2016 | ||
| NaFSI | 203.3 | 118 | 15.1 (DME) | Lee et al., | ||
| Solvent | Tm[°C] | Tb [°C] | Tf[°C] | η (cP) 25°C | ε 25°C | References |
| EC | 36.4 | 248 | 160 | 19 (40°C) | 89.78 | Xu, 2004 |
| PC | −48.8 | 242 | 132 | 2.53 | 64.92 | Xu, 2004 |
| DMC | 4.6 | 91 | 18 | 0.59 | 3.107 | Ponrouch et al., |
| DEC | −74.3 | 126 | 31 | 0.75 | 2.805 | Xu, 2004 |
| DME | −58 | 84 | 0 | 0.46 | 7.18 | Ponrouch et al., |
| DEGDME | −64 | 162 | 57 | 1.06 | 7.4 | Ponrouch et al., |
| TEGDME | −46 | 216 | 111 | 3.39 | 7.53 | Ponrouch et al., |
Basic properties of some commonly used sodium salts and organic solvents.
Mw, molecular weight; Tm, melting temperature; σmax, maximum conductivity; Tb, boiling point; Tf, flash point; η, viscosity; ε, dielectric constant; Tf−, CF3; TFSI−, [N(CF3SO2)2]−; FSI−, [N(SO2F)2] −; EC, ethylene carbonate; PC, propylene carbonate; DMC, dimethyl-carbonate; DEC, diethyl carbonate; DME, 1, 2-dimethoxyethane; DEGDME, diethylene glycol dimethyl ether; TEGDME, triethylene glycol dimethyl ether.
Solvents
As the carrier of sodium salt, solvent is another main component of SIC electrolyte. The solvent not only affects the diffusion rate of ions but also often determines the lower limit of ESW of a SIC (Ponrouch et al.,
Aqueous Electrolyte
An aqueous electrolyte usually has the advantages of high ionic conductivity, low cost, and high safety. Among the acidic, basic, and neutral electrolytes, neutral ones are more attractive owing to the safety issues (Whitacre et al., 2012). One prominent problem of aqueous electrolyte is that its ESW is narrow due to the low decomposition voltage of 1.23 V for the solvent water (Kühnel et al.,
Another commonly employed technology to enlarge the ESW of aqueous electrolyte is increasing the concentration of sodium salt. A high salt concentration is more likely to form a passivation layer on the electrode surface, which can prevent the redox process from happening at low voltages. For example, when 17 mol kg−1 NaClO4 aqueous electrolyte is utilized, the ESW of the resultant SIC can be extended to 2.75 V (Zhang Y. et al., 2018). A high ESW indicates more electrochemical energy can be reserved in a certain SIC. It is also reported the ESW of 2.6 V in a sodium ion battery with 35 mol kg−1 NaFSI aqueous electrolyte (Kühnel et al.,
Organic Electrolyte
Organic electrolyte is the most commonly used electrolyte which has a wide voltage window of up to 4 V. The drawbacks of this kind of electrolyte lie in the poor conductivity and the safety risks like volatile poisonousness and low flash point (Beguin et al.,
Organic solvents such as EC, PC, DMC, DEC, DME, DEGDME, and TEGDME, etc., have been explored in SIC electrolytes, and their basic properties are shown in Table 1. Since sodium salts are generally strong electrolytes, most of the Na+ can be dissociated before reaching saturation to participate into the charge storage process. Thus, the higher the solubility of salt in certain solvent, the more the free Na+ can be obtained in the electrolyte. However, it is revealed that in organic solvent with low dielectric constant, the relative ratio of free ions decreases with the increase of concentration (Okoshi et al.,
It is worth mention that additives are usually introduced to organic electrolyte in small amounts to compensate for the defects of the existing electrolyte (Chen et al.,
Ionic Liquid Electrolyte
Non-flammable IL electrolytes usually have the features of high viscosity and low IC. In addition, due to the relative scarcity and difficulty in material synthesis, the cost of ionic liquid based electrolyte is higher than those of other electrolytes (Ponrouch et al.,
One impressive IL-based electrolyte is that 0.8 mol L−1 sodium bis (fluorosulfonyl) imide (Na-TFSI) dissolved in the IL of 1-methyl-1-propylpyrrolidinium bis (trifluoromethyl-sulfonyl) imide (PMPyrr-TFSI) (Fleischmann et al.,
Gel Polymer Electrolyte (GPE)
Due to the inherent instability of the above liquid state electrolytes in terms of flammability, leakage, and internal short circuit problems, GPE in the form of quasi-solid-state with good ionic conductivity and high mechanical flexibility is attracting extensive interest in the areas of electrochemical energy storage (Yang et al., 2019).
For example, Wang et al. reported the first quasi-solid-state SIC with a Na+ conducting GPE poly (vinylidene difluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene). The resultant SIC can be operated at 4.2 V, delivering an energy density of 168 W h kg−1, which showed a stable cycling performance of 85% capacitance retention over 1,200 cycles (Wang et al., 2015). Xu et al. reported a hydroxyethyl cellulose-polyethylene oxide based Na+ conducting GPE, demonstrating a high energy storage property of 181 W h kg−1 at 150 W kg−1 in the SIC device (Xu et al., 2019). Different polymer based gel-state Na+ conducting electrolytes are also demonstrated recently even with a higher potential window of 4.4 V, which greatly enhanced the electrochemical properties of SIC beyond the handling safety issues (Zhang et al., 2020).
Despite various electrolytes being applicable to SIC, the choice of appropriate electrolyte depends much on the electrode materials. For example, the electrolyte should not corrode or react with the electrodes. To facilitate the free and fast Na+ transport, proper electrolyte is anticipated to well wet the electrode materials all the time. In that the redox potential of different materials varies, the electrolyte is also required to have an ESW that matches the redox potential of the electrode to give out a desired electrochemical property (Tang et al.,
Conclusion and Outlook
In conclusion, the development of metal ion-based capacitors is still in its infancy, and especially the SIC. In view of that most of the efforts have been centered on electrodes, the study of electrolyte is of urgency now owing to the fact that any component in the electrolyte plays an important role to the whole device performance. It can be seen that the matching of specific sodium salt, solvent, and additive should improve the energy storage performance of SIC on the one hand; on the other hand, all components of the electrolytes should be safe and chemically and thermally stable. These are the focus and also the difficult points of the future direction of SIC electrolytes. In general, SIC has attractive advantages over other electrochemical energy storage system in terms of the cooperative features of both high energy density and high power density. Therefore, advanced electrolyte science and technologies for high performance SIC deserve in-depth studies and further development.
Statements
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
Funding
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui province (JZ2018AKZR0058), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (PA2020GDGP0054), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1832136 and 21303038), and Hundred Talents Program of Anhui Province.
Conflict of interest
FM and LZ were employed by the company Guangde Tianyun New Tech. Co. Ltd. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Summary
Keywords
electrolyte, sodium-ion capacitor, sodium salt, aqueous, organic, ionic liquid, gel polymer
Citation
Meng F, Long T, Xu B, Zhao Y, Hu Z, Zhang L and Liu J (2020) Electrolyte Technologies for High Performance Sodium-Ion Capacitors. Front. Chem. 8:652. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2020.00652
Received
07 March 2020
Accepted
23 June 2020
Published
11 August 2020
Volume
8 - 2020
Edited by
Kwan San Hui, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
Reviewed by
Liqiang Mai, Wuhan University of Technology, China; Guanglei Cui, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (CAS), China
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© 2020 Meng, Long, Xu, Zhao, Hu, Zhang and Liu.
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*Correspondence: Jiehua Liu liujh@hfut.edu.cnFancheng Meng fancheng.meng@hfut.edu.cn
This article was submitted to Electrochemistry, a section of the journal Frontiers in Chemistry
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