Design principles for air stabilized layered oxide battery cathodes

The bottleneck in the commercial application of layered oxide battery cathodes is the harmful effects due to air sensitivity. However, it is not clear which components of the air are determinants of capacity decay and structural degradation of layered oxide cathodes. Recently in Science, Hu and colleagues addressed this long-standing challenge that has plagued the full utilization of sodium-ion batteries for over 40 years. They demonstrated the acid and oxidative degradations of sodium layered oxide cathodes upon exposure to air and revealed the stability is compromised by the combined effect of water with carbon dioxide or oxygen. This breakthrough significantly advances the practical development of next-generation sodium-ion batteries.