• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.193-197
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• 2006

The sodium/sulfur(Na/S) battery has many advantages such as high theoretical specific energy(760Wh/kg), and low material cost based on the abundance of electrode material in the earth. It has been reported that the electrochemical properties of sodium/sulfur cell above $300^{\circ}C$, utilized a solid ceramic electrolyte and liquid sodium and sulfur electrodes. A lot of researches have been performed in this field. Recently, Na/S battery system was applied for electricity storage system for load-leveling. One of severe problems of sodium/sulfur battery was high operating temperature above $300^{\circ}C$, which could induce the explosion and corrosion by molten sodium, sulfur and polysulfides. In order to develop sodium battery operated at low temperature, sodium ion battery has been studied using carbon anode, and sodium oxides cathodes. However, the energy densities of the sodium ion batteries were much lower than high temperature sodium/sulfur cell. In this study, the sodium/sulfur battery with 1M $NaCF_3SO_3$ is tested at room temperature. The charge-discharge mechanism was discussed based on XRD, DSC, SEM and EDS results.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.111-122
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• 2013

Sodium sulfur (NAS) battery is a high energy storage system (ESS). These days, as the use of renewable green energy like wind energy, solar energy and ocean energy is rapidly increasing, the demand of ESS is increasing and NAS battery is considered to be one of the most promising ESS. Since NAS battery has a high energy density(3 times of lead acid battery), long cycle life and no self-charge and discharge, it is a good candidate for ESS. A NAS battery consists of sulfur as the positive electrode, sodium as the negative electrode and ${\beta}$"-alumina as the electrolyte and a separator simultaneously. Since sulfur is an insulator, carbon felt should be used as conductor with sulfur and so the composition and property of the cathode could largely influence the cell performance and life cycle. Therefore, in this paper, the composition of NAS battery, the property of carbon felt and sodium polysulfides ($Na_2S_x$, intermediates of discharge), and the effects of these factors on cycle performance of cells are described in detail.