Executive Summary : | sodium-Ion Batteries (sIBs) are promising alternatives to Lithium-Ion Batteries due to their widespread availability and geographical distribution. Commercialization of sIBs relies on developing electrodes, electrolytes, and fabrication techniques to improve their performance, safety, and cycle life. Organic liquid electrolytes face safety issues and limited energy density, making solid-state electrolytes crucial for commercialization. NAsICON (Na superIonic CONductors)-structured electrolytes offer a 3D network for sodium-ion transportation, high room temperature ionic conductivity, wide electrochemical stability window, and air/water stability. However, NAsICON's utilization faces challenges such as processing it into a thin, flexible sheet, insufficient interfacial compatibility, susceptible dendritic growth, and inferior grain boundary conductivity. This project aims to use a scalable electrospinning process to fabricate NAsICON-structured electrolytes into flexible sheets with nanofibrous morphology for all-solid-state sIBs. The electrospinning fabrication technique can overcome these challenges, providing high flexibility, good inter-particle contact, control over thickness, and reasonable contact points at the interface. The primary experimental challenges involve choosing appropriate electrospinning and sintering parameters to obtain flexible sheets and achieving optimal sheet thickness to enhance energy density without compromising interfacial stability. Two strategies are proposed: formation of cathode/NAsICON composite sheets with atomistic contact and creation of composite polymer electrolytes with a percolating network of NAsICON through electrospinning. structural characterization of prepared sheets and evaluation of electrochemical performance in all-solid-state sIB configurations will be conducted. A successful demonstration will lead to the indigenous development of all-solid-state sIBs. |