Abstract
After the successful commercialization of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), most of the electronic products in our daily life have incorporated LIBs and they are on the brink of revolutionizing the transportation sector with electric bikes, cars, and buses. With the consumption of lithium increasing, and due to the limited availability of the lithium in earth’s crust the price of lithium batteries is expected to rise significantly, to confront this arising situation researchers are focusing on sodium, which is more abundant in the earth's crust compared to the limited resource of lithium. Since the commercially available anode material of LIB graphene produces a very low capacity and cyclability in sodium-ion batteries (SIB), it is necessary to find a suitable material for both to make the transition swift and simple from LIB to SIB. Metal sulfides is a promising candidate since it has a high theoretical capacity, good electrical conductivity, mechanical stability, and also can accommodate the bigger ions of sodium. Particularly Indium sulfide(In2S3), which has a huge number of vacancies in its crystal structure due to the incomplete assembly of sulfur atoms, because of the vacancies In2S3 can accommodate more metal-ions. In2S3 can also serve as a buffer layer which can help to accommodate the bigger ions of sodium. In2S3 can be synthesized in three phases depending on the temperature it is annealed, the a-In2S3 has a cubic lattice structure which can provide more structural stability compared to the other two phases. The pristine a-In2S3 is prepared by a simple hydrothermal process without the incorporation of carbon/graphene. The prepared sample is tested in XRD to confirm the prepared sample is cubic structured by comparing with JCPDS data. After successful preparation of a-In2S3 as an anode, the prepared electrode is tested for electrochemical performance in both LIBs and SIBs with improved cycle stability. Finally, the prepared sample is examined using in-situ XRD to study the storage mechanisms in both LIBs and SIBs.