Chemical Inhibition Method to Synthesize Highly Crystalline Prussian

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A chemical inhibition method to synthetize highly crystalline Prussian blue analogs for sodium-ion battery cathodes Renjie Chen, Yongxin Huang, Man Xie, Ziheng Wang, Yusheng Ye, Li Li, and Feng Wu ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b10884 • Publication Date (Web): 31 Oct 2016 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on November 4, 2016

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ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

A chemical inhibition method to synthetize highly crystalline Prussian blue analogs for sodium-ion battery cathodes

Renjie Chen,

†,‡,

* Yongxin Huang, † Man Xie, † Ziheng Wang, † Yusheng Ye, † Li Li, †,‡ and Feng

Wu, †,‡

†

School of Materials Science & Engineering, Beijing Key Laboratory of Environmental Science

and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, PR China. ‡

Collaborative Innovation Center of Electric Vehicles in Beijing, Beijing 100081, PR China

ABSTRACT: The nucleation rate plays a critical role in the synthesis of Prussian blue analogs. Rapid precipitation may lead to a large number of vacancies and a large amount of interstitial water in the material, resulting in poor electrochemical performance in batteries. Hence, sodium citrate is used to compete with [Fe(CN)6]4− to slow down the coordination rates of Ni2+ and Mn2+ ions with ferrous cyanide ions. The feasibility of the experiment is also confirmed by theoretical analysis. Benefitting from stable crystal structure and the removal of interstitial water, the as-prepared Na2NixMnyFe(CN)6 sample exhibits a high reversible capacity of 150 mA h g−1. In addition, a high rate performance of 77 mA h g−1 is achieved at a current density of 1600 mA g−1. Most noteworthy, the Coulombic efficiency and specific capacity gradually increase in the first few cycles, which can be ascribed to the formation of a passivation layer on the surface of the electrode. Continuous testing in an electrolyte solution of 1 M NaPF6 dissolved in sulfone reveals that the presence of a passivation film is very important for the stability of the electrode. KEYWORDS: Sodium ion batteries; Prussian blue analogues; Cathode materials; Nucleation rate; Electrolyte; Kinetic activation

1. INTRODUCTION Advanced energy storage systems are currently being developed to mitigate the energy crisis. 1-2

Owing to the discontinuous supply of clean energy sources, which include solar, wind, and tidal

energy, the energy harvested must be stored for practical application of these technologies.3 1

ACS Paragon Plus Environment


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Because of the advantages in terms of price and accessibility of the raw materials required, Na-ion batteries are particularly well suited for large-scale applications.4-5 However, despite these factors and other favorable properties, low theoretical capacity and high standard electrode potential limit their use. In terms of anode materials and electrolytes used in Na-ion batteries, there are several recent reports of suitable candidates for industrial-scale application. For example, hard carbon

6

and Na2Ti3O7 7 are suitable anode materials; and 1 mol L−1 NaPF6 in ethylene carbonate (EC) and diethyl carbonate (DEC) 8 in a 1:1 volume ratio, and 1 mol L−1 NaClO4 in propylene carbonate7 can be used as the electrolyte. It is worth mentioning that the low cost pyrolyzed anthracite anode provides good prospect for practical application of sodium ion batteries.9 However, appropriate cathode materials that have high capacity and cycling stability for Na-ion batteries are lacking. Recently, Mu et al. developed O3-type layered metal oxide cathode, which exhibited high stability in air and outstanding electrochemical properties.10 The full-cells assembled by the carbon anodes and oxide cathodes delivered practical energy density of 100 Wh kg-1. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have been intensively investigated for energy applications.11 As a cathode material in Na-ion batteries, Prussian blue (Fe4[Fe(CN)6]3), which was first synthesized in 1978, is particularly promising.12 Prussian blue has an open three-dimensional framework with a capacity of 95 mAh g−1 and a high Coulombic efficiency of nearly 100%.13 However, poor cycling performance and low specific capacity limit its practical application. Accordingly, analogs of Prussian blue (NaxMFe(CN)6; M refers to transition metal elements in fourth period) have been widely explored as high-capacity Na-storage cathodes. Among the different analogs investigated, sodium manganese (II) hexacyanoferrates (II) (MnHCF) has attracted the most attention. A MnHCF thin film reported by Matsuda et al.

14

exhibited a high

discharge capacity (109 mAh g−1), high average discharge voltage (3.4 V), good cyclability (90% after 100 cycles), and high Coulombic efficiency (above 95%) at 0.5C. However, a main shortcoming of MnHCF thin film is the small yield, which restricts the practical application. Although the simple solution precipitation reaction can produce a large amount of MnHCF materials, vacancies and interstitial water will be introduced into the materials, resulting in the collapse of crystal structure.

15

Recently, Song et al.

16

developed a method to remove the

coordinating water in MnHCF. The obtained precipitate was dried at 100 °C in vacuum for 30 h. When the dehydrated sample was fully discharged, the material exhibited a new rhombohedral 2


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phase that showed only one pair of redox peaks at 3.44 and 3.52 V and had a high reversible discharge capacity of 150 mA h g-1. Moreover, many other efforts have been taken to improve the electrochemical performance of MnHCF. For instance, this has been attempted via doping two different kinds of transition metal (TM) ions in hexacyanoferrate or via retarding the nucleation rate.

17-18

The formation of a solid

solution can be interpreted as the replacement of the ion position without a change in the crystal structure. In Prussian blue materials, some Fe3+ ions can be replaced by two or more TM ions in fourth period. These TM ions have different electrochemical properties with each other, and can enhance the capacity and stabilize the structure. Among them, nickel ferricyanide is regarded as a zero-strain insertion material, which can provide a firm skeleton.

19

Therefore, nickel and

manganese can be co-doped into hexacyanoferrate precursor to obtain high capacity and cycling stability. By controlling the co-precipitation reaction rate, TM ions can be uniformly doped into Prussian blue compounds.

15, 20−22

The solid solution of doped Prussian blue analogs exhibits a

well-defined, face-centered-cubic structure and good electrochemical performance. In terms of Na content, a slow nucleation rate of Prussian blue and its analogs is necessary to achieve a high Na content. 18 However, reducing the nucleation rate remains very challenging. In this work, the novel Prussian blue analog with two different TM ion dopants was synthetized by a co-precipitation method with slow nucleation rate. A fraction of the Mn2+ ions was substituted by electrochemically inert Ni2+ ions, which further act to support the framework, 17,21

to form the new analog (denoted PBMN) with stable cubic crystal. The morphology of the

particles becomes regularly shaped upon addition of sodium citrate because the competing reaction between citrate ions and ferrous cyanide ions slows the nucleation rate. The as-prepared sample obtained by slow precipitation showed a high discharge capacity (120 mA h g−1) and good cycling stability (after 400 cycles it retained 91% of the initial capacity), which can be attributed to the high content of Na+ ions (as high as 1.87 per formula unit) and low content of coordinating water in the material.

2. EXPERIMENTAL SECTION 2.1 Materials synthesis All the materials were purchased from Beijing Chemical Reagent Factory and were used 3



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without further purification. The sample prepared by the directly mixing of precursor solutions reacted rapidly and is designated as r-PBMN. Dropwise mixing was used to control the nucleation rate and the samples formed via this method are designated as m-PBMN. In addition to this physical method, the reaction rate was further controlled using chemical additives and the corresponding samples are designated as s-PBMN. 2.1.1 Synthesis of r-PBMN PBMN was synthesized by a simple precipitation method. Briefly, the precursors, which were dissolved in aqueous media, were directly mixed in 200 mL of deionized water under vigorous stirring. The reaction was then carried out at room temperature for 6 h. The precursor solutions used were 20 mL of 0.034 M NiCl2∙6H2O, 80 mL of 0.034 M MnCl2∙4H2O, and 100 mL of 0.04 M Na4Fe(CN)6∙10H2O. After aging for 24 h, the as-prepared light green precipitates were separated by centrifugation, washed with deionized water and ethanol, and then dried under vacuum at 100 °C. To avoid the light-induced redox action of [Fe(CN)6]4−/3−, synthesis was conducted in a dark environment. 2.1.2 Synthesis of m-PBMN In this method, instead of direct mixing, the reagents were added in a dropwise manner. A mixture of 20 mL of 0.034 M NiCl26H2O and 80 mL of 0.034 M MnCl24H2O was added drop-by-drop into 100 mL of 0.04 M Na4Fe(CN)610H2O at a rate of 1 mL min−1 under continuous stirring. 2.1.3 Synthesis of s-PBMN An additional 0.876 and 3.504 g of sodium citrate as a reaction rate inhibitor was added to the precursor solutions of NiCl2·6H2O and MnCl2·4H2O, respectively. Mixing was performed in a dropwise manner as previously described.

2.2 Structural characterizations Structural characterization of the as-prepared materials was carried out by powder X-ray diffraction (Hitachi Rigaku-D /Max-2550 PC) with monochromatic Cu kα radiation. The micrometer-scale morphology and size of the particles were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (Hitachi, S-4800) with an accelerating voltage of 5.0 kV. Elemental mapping images 4


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were obtained using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (Thermo Fisher, NS7EDS). The detailed microstructure was investigated using transmission electron microscopy (JEOL, JEM-2100F) with an accelerating voltage of 20 kV. The chemical compositions of the samples were measured using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (SVISTA-MPX) for metallic elements and elemental analysis (Vario EL Cube) for non-metallic elements. Thermo-gravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry were conducted on an Netzsch STA449F3 instrument at a heating rate of 5 °C min−1 under an Ar environment. Fourier transform infrared spectra (ATR-Ge) were recorded in the range of 400–4000 cm−1 to detect cyanide ligands. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (PHI Quantera-II) was performed with a monochromatic Al Kα radiation source. Raman spectra were recorded on a Raman spectrometer (JY Labram HR 800).

2.3 Electrochemical measurements Electrodes were prepared by slurring 70 wt% active substrate (r-PBMN, d-PBMN, or s-PBMN),

20

wt%

acetylene

black,

and

10

wt%

polyvinylidene

fluoride

in

N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, and then coating the mixture onto aluminum foil. The mass loading of active materials on electrode is approximately to 2 mg cm-2. After vacuum drying at 80 °C for about 12 h, pole-shaped pieces were punched and weighed. The electrochemical performance of the sample was tested in 2032-type cells assembled in an Ar-filled glove box with water and oxygen contents lower than 1 ppm. The Na-ion half-cell consisted of a Na-metal anode, a separator (glass fiber, Whatman), and the PBMN cathode. Then, 1.0 M NaPF6 dissolved in EC and DEC at a 1:1 volume ratio was used as the electrolyte. Another electrolyte was made with 1.0 M NaPF6 dissolved in tetramethylene sulfone (TMS) and p-toluenesulfonyl isocyanate (PTSI) at a 95:5 volume ratio. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and Nyquist plots were carried out on a CHI 660e electrochemical workstation (Shanghai Chenhua Instrument Co. Ltd, Shanghai, China). Galvanostatic charge–discharge tests were performed using a battery test system (LAND cycler; Wuhan Kingnuo Electronics Co. Ltd, Wuhan, China). The potentials quoted throughout this paper are in reference to the Na/Na+ couple. All electrochemical experiments were carried out at room temperature.

5



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2.4 Theoretical simulation Binding energy calculations were obtained using the Gaussian 09w package. The model chemistry of B3LYP and the basis set of 6-311+G (d) were adopted to achieve an accurate simulation of stable energy and optimal structure.

22, 23

The binding energies (Be) of ligand ions

and metal ions can be calculated according to the following equation: Be = E − E0 − EAn+,

(1)

where E, E0, and EAn+ represent the single-point energies of the complex, the organic ligands, and the metal ion in aqueous solution, respectively. The ligands are either the citric acid (CA) radical or ferrous cyanide (FC), and the metal ions are either Ni2+ or Mn2+. The ligand configuration is that of the steady state with metal ions rather than in isolation.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Physical and chemical properties Differences between the samples can be observed with the naked eye. Photographs of r-PBMN, m-PBMN, and s-PBMN nanoparticles, which were formed under different nucleation rates, are shown in Figure 1a. The color gradually becomes shallow with the increasing nucleation rate. It can be speculated that the nucleation rate determines the elemental composition of the material. According to the chemical composition and thermo-gravimetric analysis curves for each product (Table S1 and Figure S1), the chemical formulas of r-PBMN, m-PBMN, and s-PBMN samples can be calculated as

Na1.51Ni0.07Mn0.93[Fe(CN)6]0.89⋅ □ 0.11⋅4.98H2O ( □ = Fe(CN)6

vacancy), Na1.68Ni0.06Mn0.94[Fe(CN)6]0.93⋅□ 0.07⋅4.35H2O, and Na1.87Ni0.05Mn0.95[Fe(CN)6]0.98⋅□ 0.02⋅4.06H2O,

respectively . Hence, the color difference is mainly caused by the different Ni and

Mn contents in each sample. The vacancy numbers of the three samples become very low with the decreasing nucleation rate. In particular, the Na content of s-PBMN reaches 1.87 per formula unit. In the Raman spectra in Figure S2, the Na-ion content is higher for a slower nucleation rate. A schematic of the growth processes of s-PBMN particles is shown in Figure 1b. Sub-micrometer-sized cubes form via a three-step reaction that involves the reaction of ferrous cyanide groups with Ni2+ and Mn2+ ions, formation of sub-micrometer-sized cubic nuclei, and the growth and stacking of crystal nuclei. The first step is the rate-determining step and [Fe(CN)6] vacancies and coordinating water also form during the first step owing to the rapid nucleation rate. 6


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Differences between the three samples can also be observed from their morphology. As displayed in Figure 2a–c, when the nucleation rate was slow, the morphology of the particles was more regular. In the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images (Figure 2d–f), the r-PBMN sample comprises fine irregular particles that have undergone agglomeration. These particles are relatively large, ranging in size from 50 to 200 nm. Although the m-PBMN particles with a size of 100–150 nm are more regular in shape, half-formed cubes can still be observed. In highly crystalline s-PBMN, standard cubic particles with sharp edges and flat surfaces can be observed. Owing to the growth of small particles promoted by the slow nucleation rate, the size of s-PBMN particles was large (i.e., 350–450 nm). In this case, no zeolitic or crystalline water was present in the structure. The uniform distribution of Mn, Fe, Ni, and Na in the samples was demonstrated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) mapping (Figure 2g). In addition to the differences of morphology, there are differences in other physical properties between the samples. Firstly, the crystal structures of the three samples were discussed, in particular, that of s-PBMN. As shown in Figure 3a, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns for the s-PBMN, m-PBMN, and r-PBMN samples are characteristic of the face-centered cubic structure of Prussian blue (space group Fm3m). The lattice parameters are calculated to increase from 10.42 Å for s-PBMN to 10.44 Å for m-PBMN and 10.72 Å for r-PBMN, reflecting the differences in nucleation rate between the M atoms (Ni and Mn atoms) and hexacyanoferrate. Because of the greater number of Ni2+ ions (ionic radius = 69 pm) than Mn2+ ions doped in the material (ionic radius = 67 pm) during the rapid nucleation process, larger lattice parameters were obtained for r-PBMN. In contrast, s-PBMN exhibited the minimum lattice parameter with lower content of nickel. However, the s-PBMN sample had the highest crystallinity with the sharpest diffraction peaks, with three characteristic peaks at 2θ = 23.8° (yellow), 38.1° (blue), and 48.6° (gray), corresponding to the (220), (420), and (440) planes of the cubic crystalline, respectively. As shown in the schematic of PBMN in Figure 3b, Fe2+ ions and TM ions occupy alternate corners of a cube of corner-shared octahedra bridged by linear (C≡N) groups; thus, PBMN can be regarded as a class of MOF. High-spin TM ions bond with N atoms and low-spin Fe2+ ions bond with C atoms, forming open faces and large channels allowing insertion and extraction of Na+ ions. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrum (Figure S3) is also consistent with the MOF structure; however, it also confirms the presence of water in the vacancies. 7



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The valences of the Fe, Ni, and Mn ions in s-PBMN were determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The peak distributions displayed in Figure S4a between 707.2 and 720.0 eV are attributed to Fe2+ 2p3/2 and Fe2+ 2p1/2 in [Fe(CN)6]4−, respectively. Ni in the s-PBMN material also was detected to be bivalent (Figure S4b). Mn ions in PBMN were previously reported to be multivalent on the basis of overlapping binding energy ranges. However, the XPS in Figure S4c for s-PBMN demonstrate that Mn is nearly entirely bivalent.

24

According to the

inductively coupled plasma (ICP) analysis, the average valance of Mn ions is 1.99 in s-PBMN; thus, s-PBMN can provide more active sites with entirely bivalent Mn.

3.2 Electrochemical properties The electrochemical properties of the samples were measured at a current density of 50 mA g−1 in the voltage range of 2.0–4.0 V. As shown in Figure 4a, the initial discharging capacities of r-PBMN, m-PBMN, and s-PBMN were 101, 110, and 120 mAh g−1, respectively. The initial Coulombic efficiencies of the three samples were 89.7%, 94.4%, and 98.1%, respectively (Figure 4b). These differences are mainly caused by the different elemental compositions and vacancy contents among the samples. Vacancies not only reduce the number of active sites for Na+ ions storage, but also capture Na+ ions, resulting in an irreversible reaction. The formation of a passivation layer on the electrode surface may also consume Na+ ions, leading to a low initial Coulombic efficiency. Because of its smaller particle size and larger specific surface area, more side reactions may occur in the r-PBMN sample, resulting in its low initial discharging capacity. The Coulombic efficiencies for the three samples are greater than 95% after 100 cycles. Benefiting from the high Na-ion content and low vacancy content, s-PBMN exhibited the best performance among the three samples. After 100 cycles, the s-PBMN electrode retained a high capacity of 116 mAh g−1 and a Coulombic efficiency of more than 98%. It is noteworthy that the specific capacity of s-PBMN slightly increased during the first few cycles; this phenomenon should be explained in future work. The rate performances of the three samples are presented in Figure 4c. The s-PBMN electrode delivered specific capacities of about 120, 117, 111, 104, and 97 mAh g−1 at current densities of 50, 100, 200, 400, and 800 mA g−1, respectively. Even at a high current density of 1600 mA g−1, the electrode still delivered a discharging capacity of 78 mAh g−1. Although both the 8


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r-PBMN and m-PBMN electrodes exhibited similar stabilities as the s-PBMN electrode at low current densities, their discharging capacities decreased considerably at high current densities. This behavior reflects the stable structure and the small number of vacancies in s-PBMN. The cycle lifetime is an important evaluation index for Na-ion batteries. The cycling stability of the s-PBMN electrode at a current density of 100 mA g−1 is shown in Figure 4d. The discharging capacity was initially about 120 mA h g−1 and remained at 110 mA h g−1 after 400 cycles. This electrode also had a high Coulombic efficiency of about 99.5% after 50 cycles. Moreover, capacity fading of the electrode mainly occurred within the first 50 cycles (inset in Figure 4d). Therefore, it can be inferred that structure evolution and adverse side reactions occurred during initial cycles. The outstanding cycling stability can be attributed to the stable polarization voltage during the charging and discharging processes, as shown in Figure 4e. Moreover, the long and flat voltage plateaus in the vicinity of 3.2 V indicated that the main contribution to the capacity is from the Fe2+/3+ redox couple. Although the Mn2+/3+ redox couple also presents electrochemical activity for Na+ ions storage, the corresponding process mainly occurs at high voltage, which provide limited capacity in the voltage range of 2.0 – 4.0 V. In order to obtain higher capacity, the upper-limit voltage was raised to 4.2 V, which included the redox process of Mn2+/3+ couple. The charge-discharge curves exhibited obvious platforms at high voltage as shown in Figure S5. However, the enhancing specific capacity of s-PBMN is negligible compared to the electrode operated at narrow voltage range. Meanwhile, the enhancing upper-limit voltage may lead to a negative effect on the stability of the structure. The Na-ion insertion processes for r-PBMN and s-PBMN are depicted in Figure 4f. Because of vacancies and interstitial water in the crystal structure, the insertion of Na+ ions, which have a larger ionic radius, may lead to structural collapse. This, in turn, leads to low specific capacity and poor cycling stability. By contrast, when Na+ ions are inserted into the s-PBMN electrode, the crystal structure remains stable and the active sites can be effectively used. The electrochemical behavior of Na+ ions during insertion and extraction were characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV), as shown in Figure 5. Two pairs of redox peaks can be observed at 3.07/3.58

V,

and

3.49/3.83

V,

which

Ni2+0.05Mn2+0.06Mn3+0.89[Fe3+(CN)6]0.98+1.87Na+

correspond ↔

to

two-electron

transfer:

Na1.87Ni2+0.05Mn2+0.95[Fe2+(CN)6]0.98.

The

higher and lower plateaus are ascribed to the Mn3+/Mn2+ and [Fe3+(CN)6]3−/[Fe2+(CN)6]4− redox 9



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couples, respectively. In the first cycle, the CV curves exhibited large polarization voltages between the cathodic and anodic peaks. During the subsequent cycles, the polarization resistance was gradually reduced to a lower level. For example, the polarization voltage of the higher redox couple decreased from 0.38 to 0.28 V, and that of the lower redox couple decreased from 0.51 to 0.41 V. This relates to the activation process of the electrode. There was good reproducibility among the CV curves of repeated scans, demonstrating the excellent structural and electrochemical reversibility of this material during Na+ insertion and extraction The increase in the discharging capacity in the first few cycles is related to the kinetic activation process. To further investigate this process, Nyquist plots were performed for the s-PBMN electrode before and after the first cycle, and after five cycles. The Nyquist plots curves shown in Figure 6a are composed of a flat semicircle in the high-frequency region and a sloping line in the low-frequency region, which correspond to a charge-transfer process and a semi-infinite Warburg diffusion process, respectively. Before cycling, the charge-transfer resistance of the s-PBMN electrode was about 576.1 Ω. Because of the formation of a passivation film on the electrode surface, the resistance after the first cycle increased considerably to 1055.7 Ω. After five cycles, the interface between the electrode surface and the electrolyte became stable, resulting in a smaller resistance of 663.5 Ω. The capacity of the s-PBMN electrode gradually decreased to a stable value after five cycles. During this activation process, a large number of Na+ ions may be consumed to provide high irreversible capacity, leading to low efficiency.

25

However, the

passivation layer also has a positive effect. Mn3+ ions in a crystal structure may lead to a severe Jahn–Teller effect, resulting in the dissolution of M2+ ions.

24

Hence, the passivation layer

effectively prevents the dissolution of Mn2+ ions and improves the cycling stability. The initial specific capacity was 118 mAh g−1. After the second cycle, the specific capacity increased slightly to 120 mA h g−1 and remained stable at this value during subsequent cycles (Figure 6b), which can be considered as good electrochemical performance. Prussian blue analog electrodes were previously found to have good film-forming properties that enhance the specific capacity.

26

However, some Na+ ions will be consumed at the beginning of cycling, resulting in

capacity increase. In addition, the influence of polarization cannot be ignored. To analyze the polarization process in detail, differential capacity (dQ/dV) curves (Figure 6d–f), which provide deeper insight into the electrochemical process, were measured with the 10


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s-PBMN electrode. In accordance with the CV curves, the dQ/dV plots have two pairs of redox peaks, indicating a multi-step transfer process of Na+ ions. The polarization voltages between the low-spin [Fe3+(CN)6]3−/[Fe2+(CN)6]4− couple (couple 1) and high-spin Mn3+/Mn2+ couple (couple 2) can be obtained by simple calculation and are shown in Figure 6c. The polarization voltages of the two redox couples in the 5th cycle decreased by about 100 mV compared with those in the first cycle. The changes mainly occurred in the peaks at 3.07 and 3.58 V, which correspond to redox couple 1. It needs to be clarified whether the polarization decrease relates to changes in the electrode before or after cycling. To investigate the effect of the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) on battery performance, a novel electrolyte, 1 M NaPF6 in TMS/PTSI (95:5 v/v), was used instead of EC/DEC (1:1 v/v). 27 Because the SEI on the cathode surface is easier to produce under high voltage, the cutoff voltage was increased to 4.2 V. The s-PBMN electrodes exhibited high initial capacity in both the new and original electrolyte. However, the Coulombic efficiency of the s-PBMN electrode was very low in the first 15 cycles, as shown in Figure 7a. Because of the presence of a well-defined SEI film in the sulfone electrolyte, some Na+ ions will be consumed during cycling, which may reduce the charge and discharge efficiency of the electrode. Meanwhile, the initial charge capacity of cell can reach to 175 mA h g-1. After 15 cycles, the Coulombic efficiency remained above 90%, and after 25 cycles, the specific capacity was 90% of the initial capacity. We note that although the increased cutoff charge voltage of 4.2 V can cause a small gain in capacity, it also reduces the cycling stability of the material. As shown in Figure 7b, when the voltage range was extended to 2.0–4.2 V, three pairs of redox plateaus were present. By contrast, when the electrode operated at 2.0–4.0 V, only two pairs of redox plateaus were observed. The third oxidative plateau became weaker with the increasing number of cycles. Therefore, the additional Na+ ions being inserted might damage the crystal structure of the material. In addition, the third reductive plateau might have been caused by the side reactions in novel sulfone-based electrolyte, which also led to the poor cycling stability.

3.3 Theoretical analysis The stable configurations of the complexes and their corresponding energies are shown in Figure

8.28

The

binding

energies

for

single

Ni2+–[Fe(CN)6]4-,

11


Ni2+–C5H5O5COO3−,


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Mn2+–[Fe(CN)6]4-, and Mn2+–C5H5O5COO3− were calculated as −0.4156, −0.2722, −0.6908, and −0.2505 hartree (Table 1), respectively. Because the lower binding energy facilitates product formation, complexes of ferrous cyanide are more stable than citrate complexes. Although some Ni2+ and Mn2+ ions may have preferentially bonded with citrate, they can subsequently dissociate from the citrate and recombine with ferrous cyanide. Therefore, this reduces the rate of precipitation. The increased number of Mn2+ ions that combined with ferrous cyanide can be explained as follows. When metal ions preferentially combine with carboxyl groups on the citric acid radical, the bond length of the formed –O–Mn2+–O– group (2.00 Å) is longer than that of the –O–Ni2+–O– group (1.83 Å), which indicates that the Mn2+ ion has a stronger ability to recombine with ferrous cyanide .

4. CONCLUSIONS The quality of Prussian blue and its analogs is determined by their nucleation rate. Therefore, in the present study, we controlled the rate of nucleation in experiments and confirmed the validity of the results through theoretical calculations. Owing to the citric acid can combine with TM ions, which decreases the nucleation rate of ferrous cyanide and TM ions, the competitive relationship between these two ligands in solution reduces the number of vacancies and the amount of interstitial water in the product. The s-PBMN sample has high crystallinity, regular morphology, and good electrochemical performance. After an initial kinetic activation process, the s-PBMN electrode exhibited a high specific capacity of 120 mA h g−1 and retained a capacity of 110 mA h g−1 after 400 cycles under a current density of 100 mA g−1. It was inferred that a passive film forms on the surface of this Prussian blue analog, which improves the cycling stability of the electrode by preventing the dissolution of Mn2+ ions. Calculations revealed the different binding affinities of different transition metal ions with citric acid, explaining the different rates of nucleation. Therefore, nucleation rate inhibitors should be developed to improve the crystallinity of Prussian blue analogs.

ASSOCIATED CONTENT Supporting Information ICP data, TG and DTG curves, Raman spectroscopy, FT-IR spectra and XPS spectrum for 12


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r-PBMN, m-PBMN and s-PBMN samples.

AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author *Tel./Fax: +86-10-68451429. E-mail: [email protected]. Notes The authors declare no competing financial interest.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (2016YFB0901501), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21373028), the Joint Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1564206), Major achievements Transformation Project for Central University in Beijing and Beijing Science and Technology Project (D151100003015001).

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Figure 1.

Figure 1. (a) Photographs of r-PBMN, m-PBMN, and s-PBMN. (b) Schematic of the slow nucleation and nanocube growth process.

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Figure 2.

Figure 2. (a–c) Scanning electron microscopy images of r-PBMN, m-PBMN, and s-PBMN, respectively. (d–f) Transmission electron microscopy images of r-PBMN, m-PBMN, and s-PBMN, respectively. (g) EDS maps of s-PBMN particles, demonstrating an even distribution of Mn, Fe, Ni, and Na elements.

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Figure 3.

Figure 3. (a) X-ray diffraction patterns of r-PBMN, m-PBMN, and s-PBMN. (b) Schematic of the crystal structure of the Prussian blue analogs.

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Figure 4.

Figure 4. Electrochemical performance of r-PBMN, m-PBMN, and s-PBMN in the voltage range of 2.0–4.0 V. (a) Specific capacities and (b) Coulombic efficiencies at a current density of 50 mA g−1. (c) Rate performance. (d, e) Cycling performance and galvanostatic charge and discharge curves of the s-PBMN electrode at a current density of 100 mA g−1, respectively. (f) Schematic of the structural stability of s-PBMN and r-PBMN upon insertion of Na+ ions.

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Figure 5.

Figure 5. Cyclic voltammograms of s-PBMN in the voltage range of 2.0–4.0 V.

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Figure 6.

Figure 6. Polarization process of the s-PBMN electrode measured in the voltage range of 2.0–4.0 V. (a) Nyquist plots measured from 1×105 to 0.01 Hz. (b) Charge–discharge profiles at a current density of 100 mA g−1. (c) Polarization voltages between the [Fe(CN)6]4−/[Fe(CN)6]3− and Mn2+/Mn3+ couples. (d–f) Differential capacity plots of the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th cycles at a current density of 100 mAh g−1.

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Figure 7.

Figure 7. (a) Cycling performance and (b) charge–discharge profiles of the s-PBMN electrode tested in 1.0 M NaPF6 in TMS/PTSI (95:5 v/v) in the voltage range of 2.0–4.2 V

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Figure 8.

Figure 8. Calculated binding energies of ligand ions ([Fe(CN)6]4− and C5H5O5COO3−) and metal ions (Ni2+ and Mn2+). Bonds and angles are marked in blue and orange text, respectively.

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Table 1. Table 1. Binding energies of ions (Ni2+ and Mn2+) to organic ligands ([Fe(CN)6]4− and C5H5O5COO3−) in aqueous solution.

E (hartreea)

E0 (hartree)

EAn+ (hartree)

Be (hartree)

[Fe(CN)6]4—6Ni2+

-10868.3792

-1821.0832

-1507.8134

-0.4156

[Fe(CN)6]4-—6Mn2+

-8725.0656

-1821.0832

-1150.5486

-0.6908

C5H5O5COO3-—Ni2+

-2266.6346

-758.5490

-1507.8134

-0.2722

C5H5O5COO3-—Mn2+

-1963.4203

-812.6212

-1150.5486

-0.2505

a

Hartree is the atomic unit of energy. 1 hartree = 27.21 eV = 2625.5 kJ mol−1.

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Table of Contents

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Chemical Inhibition Method to Synthesize Highly Crystalline Prussian

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