Cascade reactors for long-life solid-state sodium–air batteries

作者：Xue Sun, Haitao Li, Yajie Song, Jiaxuan Liu, Pengxiang Ji, Xincheng Lei, Xiangzhi Zhang, Qingsong Liu, Menglu Li, Biao Deng, Dong Su, Jiajun Wang · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-025-60840-z · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Advanced Battery Materials and Technologies、Advancements in Battery Materials、Extraction and Separation Processes

Sodium (Na)-air batteries show significant potential as alternatives to lithium-air batteries due to their high theoretical energy density and the abundant availability of sodium reserves. Nevertheless, the formation of complex products, specifically NaO2, Na2O2, Na2CO3·xH2O, during the multi-step reactions inevitably raises reconciled potential incompatibility that causes low efficiency and large overpotential. Here, we introduce a cascade electrocatalysis strategy that involves switchable metal and oxygen redox chemistry through electrochemical potential tuning. Leveraging the lithium ion spatial pinning effect, sodium ions trigger in the Na[Li1/3Ru2/3]O2 electrode system to toggle the geometric state at a low electrochemical potential and oscillate among different catalytic states to achieve sequential conversion of complicated multi-step intermediates. The Na[Li1/3Ru2/3]O2 catalyst effectively compartmentalizes the threshold potential that circumvents deactivating or competing pathways while coupling different catalytic cycles. As a result, the sodium-air battery employing this catalyst exhibits long-term reversibility over 1000 cycles with a decent catalysis efficiency exceeding 99%. Our results demonstrate that the cascade electrocatalysis strategy contributes to the design of integrated sodium-air batteries with long-term cycling stability. Sodium-air batteries are appealing energy storage systems due to high theoretical energy density and high sodium abundance. But th...