Sb2S3-rGO for high-performance sodium-ion battery anodes on Al and Cu foil current collector

Abstract Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have recently drawn great interest as an alternative due to their lower cost compare to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). As in the practical application in LIBs manufacturing, Cu and Al foils are generally used as the current collectors for the anode and cathode of SIBs respectively. The concern for amorphous Li-Al alloy formation at ∼0.2 V is the main reason for selecting a different metallic (i.e. Cu) current collector. However, it is not the case for the SIBs since Na-Al alloys are formed at much lower potentials. In this paper, we demonstrate that the electrochemistry of SIBs allows an Al current collector to be used for the SIB anode without any adverse effect. The cell performance using a high capacity Sb2S3-reduced graphene oxide (Sb2S3-rGO) composite anode is undistinguishable between the use of Cu and Al current collectors. The reversible storage of Na+ in this Sb2S3-rGO composite is evaluated on both Cu-foil and Al-foil current collectors and comparable results are obtained: high desodiation specific capacities of ∼555 mAh g−1 (on Al-foil current collector) and 537 mAh g−1 (on Cu-foil current collector) for 70 cycles at 100 mA g−1. Therefore, the Al current collector can replace Cu in SIBs, which simplifies the construction of SIB cells and reduces the material cost in SIB production.