Highly Reversible Sodium Metal Batteries Enabled by Extraordinary Alloying Reaction of Single‐Atom Antimony

Abstract

The unique coordination configuration of single‐atom materials (SAMs) allows precise reaction control at atomic‐level and a potential of unusual electrochemical reaction. Nevertheless, it is a big challenge to prepare main group element with high loading content. Here, multifield‐regulated synthesis (MRS) technology is utilized to rapidly produce single‐atom antimony (Sb) metal with a high loading of 15 wt.%. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations reveal the significantly enhanced reaction kinetics of Sb and nitrogen‐doped graphene by multi‐physics field coupling. Compared with common metallic Sb nanoparticles, atomically dispersed Sb displays remarkably improved electrochemical reaction kinetics and stable structure due to the negligible variation of stresses and volume expansion during the pseudocapacitive alloying‐dealloying process. Such extraordinary alloying reaction in well‐dispersed Sb atoms enabling homogeneous ion flow can serve as active nucleation sites for regulating even Na metal nucleation and growth. As a result, copper foil coated with only ≈3 µm thickness of such material exhibits a high Coulombic efficiency of up to 99.99%, an ultra‐low overpotential of 3 mV, and a long lifetime exceeding 2500 h in symmetrical cells. Furthermore, an anode‐free MRS‐SbSA||Na3V2(PO4)3 battery is constructed, which demonstrates exceptionally high energy density (≈362 Wh Kg−1), outstanding rate capability and good cycling stability.