Revealing the Potential and Challenges of High-Entropy Layered Cathodes for Sodium-Based Energy Storage

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) reflect a strategic move for scalable and sustainable energy storage. The focus on high-entropy (HE) cathode materials, particularly layered oxides, has ignited scientific interest due to the unique characteristics and effects to tackle their shortcomings, such as inferior structural stability, sluggish reaction kinetics, severe Jahn-Teller effects induced lattice distortion, and poor oxygen reversibility at high voltage. This review focuses on high-entropy oxide materials, highlighting their fundamentals, design principles, and application in layered oxide cathodes for SIBs. It delves into the growth mechanism, composition-properties correlations, and the functional roles of high-entropy design in enhancing the performance of layered oxide cathodes. Furthermore, it furnishes a comprehensive survey of recent advancements and persisting challenges within the domain of layered high-entropy cathode materials, as well as offers insights into potential future research directions in line with the current state of knowledge. Highly intriguing, high-entropy layered oxides showcase distinctive characteristics, drawing scientific curiosity. This review explores fundamentals, design principles for sodium-ion batteries, and applications in layered cathodes. It delves into growth mechanisms, composition-properties correlations, and the significance of high-entropy design. The overview also covers recent progress, challenges, and prospects in layered high-entropy cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries. image