Congratulations to the research team Jia Huanhuan and Dr. Sun Yulong as a co-author of a thesis accepted by "Energy Storage Materials"! The title of the thesis is "Group 14 Elementbased Sodium Chalcogenide Na4Sn0.67Si0.33S4 as Structure Template for Exploring Sodium Superionic Conductors". the study).

The research of sodium superion conductor is the key to realize low-cost and high-safety sodium solid-state battery. Among the sodium superionic conductors currently studied, the sulfide sodium superionic conductor has attracted wide attention due to its high room temperature ionic conductivity, low grain boundary impedance, and easy cold forming. At present, most of the reported sulfide sodium ion conductors are based on group 15 (ie, the fifth main group) elements. Recently, the research group of Professor Xie Jia of Huazhong University of Science and Technology published an article titled "Group 14 Elementbased Sodium Chalcogenide Na4Sn0.67Si0.33S4 as Structure Template for Exploring Sodium Superionic Conductors" on Energy Storage Materials. Starting from Na4SnS4 dominated by group 14 element Sn, the author replaced part of Sn with the same group element Si, and obtained a new phase Na4Sn0.67Si0.33S4 with I41/acd space group different from the parent phase. This structure has a three-dimensional Na ion transport channel, and It can be used as a structural template with high tolerance for further element doping control. Through further doping of P element, a solid solution with the general chemical formula Na4-x[Sn0.67Si0.33]1-xPxS4 (0≤x≤0.4) can be obtained. The solid solution maintains the structure of I41/acd and when x= At 0.25, the room temperature ion conductivity reaches 1.6*10-3S/cm. This work has enriched the types of sodium sulfide superionic conductors and opened up a new field of research on sodium sulfide superionic conductors dominated by group 14 elements. It is of great significance to stimulate people to study the structure-activity relationship of sodium superionic conductor in Na-Sn-S-X (X=Cl, Br, I, Si, Sn, P, Sbetc) system.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405829719302636?dgcid=rss_sd_all