Wetting Interactions Between Porous Carbon Hosts and Liquid Sodium-Potassium Alloys Toward Their Use in Negative Electrodes of Alkali-Metal Batteries

Johannes Baller; André Hilger; Naiyu Qi; Chiara Morini; Andrea Cornelio; Arndt Remhof; Markus Osenberg; Ingo Manke; Julian Moosmann; Felix Beckmann; Gustav Graeber

arXiv · 2509.05336

Wetting Interactions Between Porous Carbon Hosts and Liquid Sodium-Potassium Alloys Toward Their Use in Negative Electrodes of Alkali-Metal Batteries

Johannes Baller·André Hilger·Naiyu Qi·Chiara Morini·Andrea Cornelio·Arndt Remhof·Markus Osenberg·Ingo Manke·Julian Moosmann·Felix Beckmann·Gustav Graeber

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Abstract

Batteries with liquid alkali-metal negative electrodes offer a route to compact, high-performance energy storage. Innovation in alkali-metal management, i.e., controlled storage, release and transport of liquid alkali metal, can enable simpler and cheaper cell designs. Porous carbons have emerged as potential host materials for liquid alkali metals. Here, we study the wetting interactions between porous carbon hosts and liquid sodium-potassium alloy (NaK) as a function of carbon host morphology and surface functionalization via X-ray computed tomography. While as-received carbon samples show no affinity towards NaK, heat-treated carbon is spontaneously infiltrated with NaK filling almost the entire pore volume. We explore how forced wetting partially fills pores of NaK-repellent hosts, showing large differences in pore filling based on the average pore size of the host material. In electrochemical discharge experiments, we show that both as-received and heat-treated carbon felt enable high areal capacities beyond 40 mAh cm-2. However, the heat-treated carbon shows ten times lower overpotential. Finally, we demonstrate how heat-treated carbon felt can enable capillary transport of NaK. In summary, this study elucidates important aspects of the interactions between liquid alkali metals and porous carbon hosts, generating insights into possible applications in liquid alkali-metal batteries.

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Johannes Baller, André Hilger, Naiyu Qi, Chiara Morini, Andrea Cornelio, Arndt Remhof, Markus Osenberg, Ingo Manke, Julian Moosmann, Felix Beckmann, Gustav Graeber. 2025-09-01. Wetting Interactions Between Porous Carbon Hosts and Liquid Sodium-Potassium Alloys Toward Their Use in Negative Electrodes of Alkali-Metal Batteries. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05336

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