Electrochemically Active Mn-Doped Iron Hexacyanoferrate as the Cathode Material in Sodium-Ion Batteries

In this work, for the performance enhancement of iron hexacyanoferrate, an electrochemically active Mn-doped iron hexacyanoferrate cathode is fabricated via a bottom-up approach. It is found that the pre-treatment of interstitial water and appropriate Mn doping are two keys to achieving higher capacity and higher stability. The interstitial water has a trade-off effect between the alleviation of volume expansion upon Na+ (de)intercalation and the retardation of Na-ion diffusion. The moisture-tailored iron hexacyanoferrate with appropriate Mn doping exhibits a high initial Coulombic efficiency of 94.8%, enhanced capacity and rate performance, and excellent cycling stability. These results benefit from the fact that the extraction/insertion of Na ions from/into the lattice via a solid-solution mechanism correspond to both the slight volume expansion and fast sodium diffusion rate; otherwise, the removal of interstitial water and a higher Mn content might lead to poor cycling stability due to excessive volume expansion resulting from rhombohedral to cubic phase transformation. Finally, the less demand on the control of air humidity for the fabrication of electrodes and the potential for the full cell coupled with hard carbon are also demonstrated, which shows great potential for practical applications.