Activating Stable Multielectron Transfer via High‐Frequency Na <sup>+</sup> Jumping for a Sc‐doped Na <sub>3.97</sub> VMn <sub>0.97</sub> Sc <sub>0.03</sub> (PO <sub>4</sub> ) <sub>3</sub>
The Na<sub>4</sub>VMn(PO<sub>4</sub>)<sub>3</sub> (NVMP) cathode is considered one of the most promising candidates for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs), but it suffers from a low capacity due to the limited kinetics of V<sup>3+</sup>/V<sup>4+</sup> and Mn<sup>2+</sup>/Mn<sup>3+</sup> in the electrochemical reaction. A higher capacity can be achieved by activating a redox pair with high valence states like V<sup>4+</sup>/V<sup>5+</sup>. However, activation of those redox pairs in conventional NVMP cathode requires a redox potential beyond 4.0 V (vs Na<sup>+</sup>/Na) and induces serious structural degradation. Herein, a scandium (Sc)-doped Na<sub>3.97</sub>VMn<sub>0.97</sub>Sc<sub>0.03</sub>(PO<sub>4</sub>)<sub>3</sub> is designed, which activates multielectron transfer while effectively mitigating reversibility compromises by configuring a rational voltage range. The capacity can be improved by 16.7% to 113.8 mAh g<sup>-1</sup> based on more electron transfer from 1.75e<sup>-</sup> to 2.05 e<sup>-</sup>, which is mainly attributed to the accelerated redox reactions of V<sup>3+</sup>/V<sup>4+</sup> and Mn<sup>2+</sup>/Mn<sup>3+</sup> within 2.0-3.8 V (vs Na<sup>+</sup>/Na). The enhanced kinetics are achieved by faster Na<sup>+</sup> diffusion kinetics via high-frequency Na<sup>+</sup> jumping, which originates from enriched V<sub>Na</sub>' vacancy by Sc doping. The improved kinetics also ameliorate grain uniformity during repeatable charge-discharge cycling, leading to an excellent capacity retention of 80.2% after 1400 cycles at 5C. These findings offer a promising pathway toward facile and controllable multi-electron transfer cathodes.
Authors
- Peng Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5963-1390)
- G.X. Li
- Hao Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3471-9964)
- Zheyi Zou
- Hui Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2805-0184)
- Xianfeng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8541-5779)
- Qiong Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1659-0549)
- Jiahui Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8645-4008)
- Hao Teng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2548-0413)
- Rui Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9393-5259)
Institutions
- Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy (CN)
- Yulin University (CN)
- Xiangtan University (CN)
- Dalian Jiaotong University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Small
- Published
- 2025-08-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202507238
- Primary Topic
- Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00