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Global demand for electronic devices and electric vehicles is set to continue growing and diversifying in the coming years. This rise in demand calls for powerful batteries with enhanced efficiency, performance, and safe storage technologies.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been ruling this secondary ion battery sector for over three decades now. However, the supply of lithium is gradually declining due to concerns about unsustainable extraction practices, high costs, and uneven geographic distribution.

This has led researchers and the industry to find an alternative to LIBs. A promising contender is sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) because sodium is abundant in nature, is cost-effective, and has high electrochemical potential. However, certain issues need to be addressed before implementing them for commercial applications.

First, the ionic radius of sodium is larger than lithium, which gives rise to slow ion kinetics and complications in phase stability and interphase formation. Second, there is a need to develop electrodes that are compatible and ensure high performance with not only LIBs but also SIBs. Moreover, carbon-based materials make promising electrodes for LIBs and SIBs, but they are not without their own set of flaws.

To help improve the performance and stability of electrodes, Professor Noriyoshi Matsumi from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Japan with his doctoral course student Amarshi Patra at JAIST, shifted their focus towards polymeric binders for manufacturing electrodes in SIBs.

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