Abstract
Sodium metal chloride batteries have become a substantial focus area in the research on prospective alternatives for battery energy storage systems (BESSs) since they are more stable than lithium ion batteries. This study demonstrates the effects of the cathode microstructure on the electrochemical properties of sodium metal chloride cells. The cathode powder is manufactured in the form of granules composed of a metal active material and NaCl, and the ionic conductivity is attained by filling the interiors of the granules with a second electrolyte (NaAlCl4). Thus, the microstructure of the cathode powder had to be optimized to ensure that the second electrolyte effectively penetrated the cathode granules. The microstructure was modified by selecting the NaCl size and density of the cathode granules, and the resulting Na/(Ni,Fe)Cl2 cell showed a high capacity of 224 mAh g−1 at the 100th cycle owing to microstructural improvements. These findings demonstrate that control of the cathode microstructure is essential when cathode powders are used to manufacture sodium metal chloride batteries.
Highlights
IntroductionCommercial Na/NiCl2 cells have poor price competitiveness because of the large amount of Ni they contain and their high operation temperature
In high-density granules formed under a higher pressure, the Ni agglomerates were well connected between particles
We investigated the effect of the cathode microstructure on the electrochemical properties of cells for a sodium metal chloride battery
Summary
Commercial Na/NiCl2 cells have poor price competitiveness because of the large amount of Ni they contain and their high operation temperature Because of these weaknesses, many experimental strategies for improving Na/NiCl2 batteries have been attempted, such as replacing the Ni in the cathode with other metals [5,6,7,8,9,10], decreasing the operating temperature [11,12,13,14] and enhancing Ni-based cathodes [15,16,17,18]. Other studies have examined the influence of increased NaCl size after cycling under various conditions [12] This result was related to the effects of cell degradation. The effects of the granule manufacturing process have been studied [19], but this study mainly analyzed the granule production conditions, whereas the microstructure was not examined in detail
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