Local structure of niobate nanosheet electrodes

Sodium-ion batteries (NIB) have attracted interest for use in grid-storage applications, because of the high abundance and low-cost of sodium. While the chemistry of lithium and sodium are in many ways similar, a key difference is that graphite – the anode of choice for lithium-ion batteries – cannot intercalate sodium meaning that alternative anodes must be found. The performance of layered oxides anodes can be improved by tailoring the interlayer space into which sodium inserts. However, considerable structural disorder in the materials means that it is difficult to understand the atomic structure using conventional powder diffraction. Here, we propose to use pair distribution function analysis of total scattering data to look at the local structure of niobate-based nanosheet electrodes.