Three-dimensional faveolate porous N-doped carbon skeleton embodied with nano Bi toward stable less-Na sodium metal batteries

Sodium metal batteries (SMBs) have been widely investigated recently due to the low price of Na metal, satisfactory energy density and similar chemical properties to lithium. However, SMBs also face challenges like low Na utilization, dendrite growth, dead sodium accumulation, unstable solid electrolyte interphase and massive bubble generation. To improve their safety and cycling stability, herein, we fabricate a porous hybrid framework, i.e., fine Bi nanoparticles anchored in porous N-doped carbon matrix (Bi@PNC), as a modified layer upon Cu collector toward stable SMBs. Upon electrochemical activation, the nanoscale Bi-derived Na–Bi alloy with high sodiophilicity reduces the nucleation overpotential of Na, inhibits the formation of Na dendrites, and decreases the loss of Na during cycling. Thanks to these striking merits, the half cells assembled with Na undergo 1600 cycles (3200 h) at 1 mA cm−2, 1 mAh cm−2 with the average Coulombic efficiency of 99.95%. The optimized Bi@PNC based symmetric cells still maintain the overpotential of ∼9.2 mV under 1 mA cm−2 and depth of discharge of 16.7% after cycling for 2420 h. Furthermore, the assembled less-Na full SMBs exhibit superb electrochemical properties. Our strategy here provides meaningful avenue to construct stable less-Na metallic anodes for advanced SMBs.