Hard carbons for sodium-ion batteries: Structure, analysis, sustainability, and electrochemistry

摘要

Hard carbons are extensively studied for application as anode materials in sodium-ion batteries, but only recently a great interest has been focused toward the understanding of the sodium storage mechanism and the comprehension of the structure–function correlation. Although several interesting mechanisms have been proposed, a general mechanism explaining the observed electrochemical processes is still missing, which is essentially originating from the remaining uncertainty on the complex hard carbons structure. The achievement of an in-depth understanding of the processes occurring upon sodiation, however, is of great importance for a rational design of optimized anode materials.