Designing an All-Solid-State Sodium-Carbon Dioxide Battery Enabled by Nitrogen-Doped Nanocarbon.

All-solid-state sodium-carbon dioxide (Na-CO2) battery is an emerging technology that effectively utilizes the greenhouse gas-CO2-for energy storage with the virtues of minimized electrolyte leakage and suppressed Na dendrite growth for Na metal anode. However, the sluggish reduction/evolution reactions of CO2 on the solid electrolyte/CO2 cathode interface have caused premature battery failure. Herein, nitrogen (N)-doped nanocarbon derived from metal-organic frameworks is designed as a cathode catalyst to solve this challenge. The porous and highly conductive N-doped nanocarbon possesses superior uptake and binding capability with CO2, which significantly accelerates the CO2 electroreduction and promotes the formation of thin sheet-like discharged products (200 nm in thickness) that can be easily decomposed upon charging. Accordingly, reduced discharge/charge overpotential, high discharge capacity (> 10,000 mAh g-1), long cycle life, and high energy density (180 Wh kg-1 in pouch cells) are achieved at 50 oC.