Towards greener energy storage: Brief insights into 3D-printed anode materials for sodium-ion batteries

Heterostructure engineering is one of the most promising modification strategies toward improving sluggish kinetics for the anode of sodium ion batteries (SIBs). Herein, we report a systemic investigation on the different types of heterostructure interfaces' effects of discharging products (Na2O, Na2S, Na2Se) on the rate performance. First-principle calculations reveal that the Na2S/Na2Se interface possesses the lowest diffusion energy barrier (0.39 eV) of Na among three kinds of interface structures (Na2O/Na2S, Na2O/Na2Se, and Na2S/Na2Se) due to its smallest recorded interface deformation, similar electronegativity, and lattice constant. The experimental evidence confirms that the metal sulfide/metal selenide (SnS/SnSe2) hierarchical anode exhibits outstanding rate performance, where the normalized capacity at 10 A g-1 compared to 0.1 A g-1 is 45.6%. The proposed design strategy in this work is helpful to design high rate performance anodes for advanced battery systems.