Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) have been regarded as
prospective
cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries due to tunable chemical
composition and structure. Herein, a high-performance rhombohedral
nickel hexacyanoferrate is synthesized via a controllable low-temperature
reaction process. It can deliver impressive capacity retention of
87.8% after 10 000 cycles at 10C and high rate discharge capacity
of 53 mAh g–1 at 40C. According to the structural
evolution and lattice water movement, superior electrochemical performance
is ascribed to small lattice alteration and high reversibility of
rhombohedral–cubic transition upon Na+ insertion/extraction.
The environment information of local- and long-range structure evolution
is revealed by ex situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and in
situ X-ray diffraction (XRD). Importantly, lattice water movement
during cycling by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) measurements offers
an experimental validation about Na+ nonlinear migration
path, as well as the accumulative lattice distortion effect from large-size
Na(OH2)+ unit. The revealed mechanism points
out the modified path for PBAs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.