SNU professor Cho Maeng-Hyo’s research team developed a next-generation new concept sodium anode material
-the first establishment of sodium anode material group with computational science-based design
 
▲ SNU Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Cho Maeng-Hyo’s research team:
Prof. Cho Maeng-Hyo, researcher Kim Doo-Ho

 
On 6^th this month, SNU College of Engineering announced that research team of SNU Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Cho Maeng-Hyo (researcher Kim Doo-Ho) developed a new concept of sodium anode material, jointly with Professor Cho Kyeong-Jae of University of Texas at Dallas.
The newly developed sodium-based anode material is a manganese based next-generation sodium ion battery with a new concept that is attracting attention as a next-generation energy storage device based on the fundamental reaction and degeneration mechanism of lithium manganese oxide used in conventional high-capacity lithium ion battery,
In general, transition metal-based oxides used in secondary batteries operate based on oxidation/reduction reactions of transition metals. However, the sodium anode material developed in this study is a new concept that operates using only the oxygen bound to the transition metal.
Based on this new concept, the researchers showed that it is possible to overcome the limitations of low voltage/capacity compared to lithium ion batteries to realize high energy density of sodium ion batteries.
Moreover, they proposed a reasonable design of the new concept sodium ion anode material using the first principle calculation, which is a computational science. Based on this, they first established a sodium anode material group operated by anion redox reaction.
Professor Cho said, “In this study, we proposed a reasonable design for a new concept sodium ion cathode material using computational science technique,” and that “it is meaningful in that it presented a sodium anode material group operated by anion redox reaction for the first time.”
The result of this study received global attention and was published as a inside front cover paper in the September issue of Advanced Materials (Impacted factor = 19.79)
The study was led by Prof. Cho Maeng-Hyo of SNU Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (Corresponding author) and Prof. Cho Kyeong-Jae of University of Texas at Dallas, and researcher Kim Doo-Ho in doctoral program. It was carried out as part of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning/National Research Foundation’s Leading researcher (innovative research) project and Minstry of trade, Industry and Energy’s Energy Technology Development Project.

▲ Diagram 1:
(Left) an atomic model of manganese-based sodium anode material design based on new concept anion redox reaction.
(right) Voltage varying with sodium ion content.