Tunable Reaction Potentials in Open Framework Nanoparticle Battery Electrodes for Grid-Scale Energy Storage

The electrical energy grid has a growing need for energy storage to address short-term transients, frequency regulation, and load leveling. Though electrochemical energy storage devices such as batteries offer an attractive solution, current commercial battery technology cannot provide adequate power, and cycle life, and energy efficiency at a sufficiently low cost. Copper hexacyanoferrate and nickel hexacyanoferrate, two open framework materials with the Prussian Blue structure, were recently shown to offer ultralong cycle life and high-rate performance when operated as battery electrodes in safe, inexpensive aqueous sodium ion and potassium ion electrolytes. In this report, we demonstrate that the reaction potential of copper-nickel alloy hexacyanoferrate nanoparticles may be tuned by controlling the ratio of copper to nickel in these materials. X-ray diffraction, TEM energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and galvanostatic electrochemical cycling of copper-nickel hexacyanoferrate reveal that copper and nickel form a fully miscible solution at particular sites in the framework without perturbing the structure. This allows copper-nickel hexacyanoferrate to reversibly intercalate sodium and potassium ions for over 2000 cycles with capacity retentions of 100% and 91%, respectively. The ability to precisely tune the reaction potential of copper-nickel hexacyanoferrate without sacrificing cycle life will allow the development of full cells that utilize the entire electrochemical stability window of aqueous sodium and potassium ion electrolytes. © 2012 American Chemical Society.