Stable Cycling of Sodium Metal Anodes Enabled by a Sodium/Silica‐Gel Host

Sodium metal batteries (SMBs) are innovative and promising energy storage systems. SMBs a competitive technological paradigm compared to the state-of-the-art lithium-ion thanks high specific capacity of sodium metal, i. e., 1166 mAh g−1, Na+/Na0 low redox potential −2.71 V vs. standard hydrogen electrode. Unstable solid electrolyte interface (SEI), uncontrolled overpotentials dendrite growth main drawbacks that hinder development SMBs. Herein, we propose functionalized silica gel material with extended porosity (NaSGII) as an active host in order obtain stable cycling anodes. NaSGII was incorporated composite electrodes using conductive carbon additive polymeric binders functional properties cells demonstrated by galvanostatic tests. A Butler-Volmer analysis improvement electrokinetic parameters induced NaSGII.