DOI: 10.1002/ente.201700760 Graphene Oxide-Supported b-Tin Telluride Composite for Sodium- and Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes Dmitry A. Grishanov, [a] Alexey A. Mikhaylov, [a, b, c] Alexander G. Medvedev, [a] Jenny Gun, [b] Petr V. Prikhodchenko,* [a] Zhichuan J. Xu, [c] Arun Nagasubramanian, [d] Madhavi Srinivasan, [d, e] and Ovadia Lev* [b, c] Introduction Sodium-ion batteries (NIBs) are an attractive alternative to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), although the current state of de- velopment of NIBs is not yet as advanced as for LIBs. The challenges associated with the inherent drawbacks of sodium can be reasonably addressed by recent technological devel- opments. [1–3] The low cost of sodium compared to lithium and its much higher abundance in the earth crust compensate for the expenditures needed for extra risk prevention. The slight- ly higher Na/Na + potential (compared to that of lithium) is considered a reasonable price for the high abundance and low cost of sodium ions. Lithium readily intercalates into graphite, often reaching the theoretical capacity of 372 mAh g À1 associated with C 6 Li stoichiometry. In fact, some other carbon forms such as reduced graphene oxide and carbon nanotubes exhibit even higher capacities, [4, 5] whereas sodium does not appreciably intercalate into graph- ite. [6] Hard carbon and carbon fibers were developed as alter- native intercalation substrates, [7–11] but their stable reversible charge capacity is limited to 250 mAh g À1 , and the peak cur- rent is too close to zero vs. the Na/Na + electrode, posing a dendrite formation risk. The most viable alternatives to the carbon-based NIB anode are sodium alloys: phosphorous, [12] germanium [13] tin, [14] antimony, [15] and very recently, tellurium, [16] which are among the most studied alloying candidates. Initially, the NIB anode alloying research was centered on these elements and their oxides, [1] however, the reduction and re-oxidation of these oxides yield Na 2 O, which exhibits a slow reduction rate. Therefore, significant research efforts have been recent- ly directed to the studies of antimony and tin chalcogenides. Antimony sulfide [17, 18] and tin sulfide [19–21] exhibit high charge capacities due to sodiation and desodiation of Sb/Sn and re- versible alloying with sulfur. However, sulfur redox reactions suffer from two major drawbacks: sulfur is nonconductive (10 À16 Sm À1 ), and polysulfides (S n 2À ) are soluble, [22–24] decreas- ing electrode stability and cell efficiency. The use of selenides has recently been reported, [25] as selenium is more conductive (10 À4 Sm À1 ) than sulfur, and polyselenides are less soluble than polysulfides. [26] The next chalcogen in row 5 of the peri- odic table is tellurium, exhibiting several advantages com- High-charge-capacity sodium- and lithium-ion battery anodes based on tin telluride are reported for the first time. Gra- phene oxide/cubic b-SnTe electrodes exhibit exceptionally high reversible volumetric charge capacities above 3000 and 1300 mAh cm À3 at 100 mA g À1 charging rate for lithium and sodium ion batteries, respectively, and they show very good rate capabilities retaining 68 and 60 % of the respective ca- pacities even at 2000 mA g À1 charging rate. The reversible charge capacity for lithiation is approximately equal to the theoretical value of the active material. The superior elec- trode performance is attributed to the high conductivity of tellurium, the mechanical buffering of volume changes by the large row-V host elements, the elasticity of the reduced graphene oxide support, and the very low specific equivalent volumes involved in sodiation and lithiation of SnTe. [a] D.A. Grishanov, Dr. A. A. Mikhaylov, Dr. A. G. Medvedev, Dr. P. V. Prikhodchenko Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry Russian Academy of Sciences Leninskii prosp. 31, Moscow 119991 (Russia) E-mail: prikhman@gmail.com [b] Dr. A. A. Mikhaylov, Dr. J. Gun, Prof. O. Lev The Casali Center of Applied Chemistry, The Institute of Chemistry The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904 (Israel) E-mail: ovadia@mail.huji.ac.il [c] Dr. A. A. Mikhaylov, Prof. Z. J. Xu, Prof. O. Lev Singapore-HUJ Alliance for Research and Enterprise, NEW-CREATE Phase II Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) 1 CREATE Way, Singapore 138602 (Singapore) [d] Dr. A. Nagasubramanian, Prof. M. Srinivasan TUM— CREATE Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) 1 CREATE Way, Singapore 138602 (Singapore) [e] Prof. M. Srinivasan Energy Research Institute@NTU Nanyang Technological University 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 (Singapore) Supporting Information and the ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/ ente.201700760. This publication is part of a special collection on the work of the “CREATE Research Campus”. To view the collection’s Table of Contents, please visit http://bit.ly/CREATE-10. Energy Technol. 2018, 6, 127 – 133  2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 127