Low-Temperature Aqueous Na-Ion Batteries: Strategies and Challenges of Electrolyte Design

Abstract

Aqueous Na-ion batteries (ANIBs) are considered to be promising secondary battery systems for grid-scale energy storage applications and have attracted widespread attention due to their unique merits of rich resources of Na, as well as the inherent safety and low cost of aqueous electrolytes. However, the narrow electrochemical stability widow and high freezing point of traditional dilute aqueous electrolytes restrict their multi-scenario applications. Considering the charge-storage mechanism of ANIBs, the optimization and design of aqueous Na-based electrolytes dominate their low-temperature performance, which is also hot off the press in this field. In this review, we first systematically comb the research progress of the novel electrolytes and point out their remaining challenges in ANIBs. Then our perspectives on how to further improve the low-temperature performance of ANIBs will also be discussed. Finally, this review briefly sheds light on the potential direction of low-temperature ANIBs, which would guide the future design of high-performance aqueous rechargeable batteries.