title: A string of nickel hexacyanoferrate nanocubes coaxially grown on a CNT@bipolar conducting polymer as a high-performance cathode material for sodium-ion batteries.
abstract: The development of suitable cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries is the key issue to realize their large-scale applications owing to the lack of appropriate materials with adequate electrochemical capacity and reversibility for Na-ion insertion reaction. Here, a string of nickel hexacyanoferrate (NiHCF) nanocubes is coaxially grown on a CNT@bipolar conducting polymer (BCP) by a facile electrochemical route, and used as a high-performance cathode material for sodium-ion batteries. The obtained cathode shows a surprisingly high specific capacity of 194 mA h g-1upon the initial discharge, a good cycling performance and excellent rate performance. It is considered that the unique nanostructure not only effectively facilitates the electrode/electrolyte interaction and the electronic and ionic transportation but also exerts a synergistic effect between the BCP and NiHCF nanocubes to trigger the kinetics of the electron and ion transport. It is expected that such a promising environmentally friendly alternative cathode material can be widely applied for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs).
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China. wangzhongde@tyut.edu.cn zdwangtyut@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Zhongde
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1330-2644
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China. wangzhongde@tyut.edu.cn zdwangtyut@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China. wangzhongde@tyut.edu.cn zdwangtyut@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Zhijun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: North Japan Research Institute for Sustainable Energy (NJRISE), Hirosaki University, 2-1-3, Matsubara, Aomori 030-0813, Japan.
authors.forename: Guoqing
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China. wangzhongde@tyut.edu.cn zdwangtyut@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Ding
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China. wangzhongde@tyut.edu.cn zdwangtyut@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Huayan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6828-2548
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China. wangzhongde@tyut.edu.cn zdwangtyut@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Shoudong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China. wangzhongde@tyut.edu.cn zdwangtyut@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Shibin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China. wangzhongde@tyut.edu.cn zdwangtyut@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Xiaogang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hao