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Synthetic design of crystalline inorganic chalcogenides exhibiting fast-ion conductivity

Nature volume 426, pages 428–432 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Natural porous solids such as zeolites are invariably formed with inorganic cations such as Na+ and K+ (refs 1, 2). However, current research on new porous materials is mainly focused on the use of organic species as either structure-directing or structure-building units; purely inorganic systems have received relatively little attention in exploratory synthetic work3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Here we report the synthesis of a series of three-dimensional sulphides and selenides containing highly mobile alkali metal cations as charge-balancing extra-framework cations. Such crystalline inorganic chalcogenides integrate zeolite-like architecture with high anionic framework polarizability and high concentrations of mobile cations. Such structural features are particularly desirable for the development of fast-ion conductors10. These materials demonstrate high ionic conductivity (up to 1.8 × 10-2 ohm-1 cm-1) at room temperature and moderate to high humidity. This synthetic methodology, together with novel structural, physical and chemical properties, may lead to the development of new microporous and open-framework materials with potential applications in areas such as batteries, fuel cells, electrochemical sensors and photocatalysis.

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Figure 1: The structural diagrams of the inorganic chalcogenide frameworks.
Figure 2
Figure 3: The dependence of the ionic conductivity on the relative humidity for ICF-5 CuInS-Na.
Figure 4: The dependence of the ionic conductivity on the relative humidity for ICF-21 InSe-Na.
Figure 5: The a.c. impedance plot of ICF-22 InS-Li at 24.0 °C under 31.7% relative humidity.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of this work by the NSF. We also thank Y. Yan and his group for assistance with impedance measurements.

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  1. Xianhui Bu

    Present address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California State University, 1250 Bellflower Blvd, Long Beach, California, 90840, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of California, California, 92521, Riverside, USA

    Nanfeng Zheng & Pingyun Feng

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of California, California, 93106, Santa Barbara, USA

    Xianhui Bu

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Correspondence to Pingyun Feng.

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Zheng, N., Bu, X. & Feng, P. Synthetic design of crystalline inorganic chalcogenides exhibiting fast-ion conductivity. Nature 426, 428–432 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02159

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