Sodium-metal batteries (SMBs) are among the most promising high-energy and low-cost energy storage systems for the next-generation of large-scale applications. However, one of the major impediments to the development of SMBs is uncontrolled growth of dendrites, which penetrate the battery’s separator and result in short-circuiting.
Building on previous work at the University of Bristol, and in collaboration with Imperial College and University College London, the Bristol-led team succeeded in making a separator from cellulose nanomaterials derived from brown seaweed.
Their research paper describes how fibres containing these seaweed-derived nanomaterials not only stop crystals from the sodium electrodes penetrating the separator, they also improve the performance of the batteries.
“The aim of a separator is to separate the functioning parts of a battery (the plus and the minus ends) and allow free transport of the charge," said Jing Wang, first author...