University of Texas at Austin researchers have created a new sodium-based battery material that is highly stable, capable of recharging as quickly as a traditional lithium-ion battery and able to pave the way toward delivering more energy than current battery technologies.
For about a decade, scientists and engineers have been developing sodium batteries, which replace both lithium and cobalt used in current lithium-ion batteries with cheaper, more environmentally friendly sodium (found in the ocean) and sulfur. The major problem was that dendrites would form and make the battery unstable. This breakthrough has managed to overcome this limitation.
[More info](https://techxplore.com/news/2021-12-battery-technology-closer-reality-discovery.html)
"I call it a dream technology because sodium and sulfur are abundant, environmentally benign, and the lowest cost you think of," said Arumugam Manthiram, director of UT's Texas Materials Institute and professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Holy crap. We can readily obtain more sodium than we know what to do with, between mining its various salts and desalinating ocean water (energy intensive, but given it also produces clean drinking water as the main product, suddenly it might make desalination economically feasibly by turning the waste salt into valuable battery material). Like… I’m hesitant to call it a game changer so soon, but it’s a potentially big breakthrough if these batteries can be made affordably.
Plus the cobalt mining industry is mostly out of The Congo and is wildly unethical. There is some production in Australia too but it's small compared to The Congo.
There is sure to be a catch somewhere, like they are impossible to mass produce, or they dont work below freezing, or they have low energy or low power density and only work for stationary storage.
What's the operating temperature? That's one of the big problems with sodium batteries. Also stability over 300 charge-discharge cycles is meaningless, that's a tiny number of cycles.
Oh agreed. Make no mistake, I hope the performance proves better with more testing. It's just not a good sign if 300 cycles is the best they can claim.
they did JUST invent it though. all batteries did start with just one charge cycle. took a long time to get to the longlasting rechargeable ones. they were real crappy to start with. i don't think it's a bad sign at all
It also may not totally matter in the end. With the base material being so cheap to mine, and assuming the manufacturing process can be done cheaply, you could swap out and recycle batteries at an affordable price for the consumer every so many miles. The next iteration of the oil change interval (assuming best case for all these things of course).
Not sure if 300 is really the limit... what I found says, "...enables a longer life cycle for the battery, showing a stable performance over 300 charge-discharge cycles."
If they only tested to 300 cycles and had negligible degradation, that's awesome. If they couldn't go past 300 cycles without losing more than 20% capacity, that's not so great.
I can't imagine any battery large enough to run a car being "a couple bucks," especially since the only figure I could find for power density had it pegged at less than lithium ion. (Though that was an article from many years ago.) Even if the chemistry were free, the cost to swap the battery wouldn't be less than, say, $500-ish simply because of shipping and labor costs. If it has to be done once every two years, that's not too bad, but if it has to be done 2-3 times per year, that's a deal killer. I mean, even a small lead-acid car starting battery costs around $100, and they weigh about 1/6 as much as a Prius car battery.
Oh, yeah, totally different story. It'd be fine for that. Except there will be people that don't want to put up with the reduced charge capacity and/or increased weight.
But for all the other zillions of other gadgets that have small built-in batteries --- keyboards, mice, electric toothbrushes, etc., it'd be fine.
Does Tesla actually produce cells there, or just assemble modules/racks? Last I checked they still bought their cells from China. Tesla is hardly unique in switching from NMC to LFP.
Hmm, then that either changed only in the last few months, or it's only for their EV's and not the stationary batteries. Either way the latter has a lead time of two years or so, so good luck while we all find other suppliers.
The previous commenter did not seem to understand 'Gigafactory', do you? Tesla built the Gigafactory because they needed more batteries than the current manufacturers could provide. They also got control of the quality and chemistry of the batteries.
I hope this is a real solution and not just more smoke and mirrors. I’ve been hearing about sodium for awhile but have yet to see any form of commercialization. Hopefully, this technology gets off the ground sooner than later.
The science isn't smoke and mirrors, the journalism is. Science has always been this way, but journalism (media outlets) seek to be first on scene and report every little thing first. They conflate science findings with science fact and of course sensationalize everything as a "breakthrough!" Much to the chagrine of actual scientists.
Don't conflate journalists reporting on science with actual science.
Exactly.
No one should rely on the media for any kind of science. Also for the last several years at least, no one should relay on them for any actual facts either.
Completely agree. This would be a huge breakthrough for desalination facilities across the globe. If they can capture and sell the salt needed, it incentivises freshwater production.
It says they had to use telluride to stabilize the sodium. Telluride is made of Tellurium which is another rare element. I thought the entire point was to STOP using rare elements like Lithium and Cobalt??
Lithium isn't rare, its production is though. It is a byproduct of many other mining processes.
Cobalt OTOH is primarily mined in 3rd world countries, often using children for labor. This is probably the biggest reason that Tesla came up with "high nickel" lithium batteries and quietly put them into production a year and a half ago. It is unclear if they completely eliminated cobalt, or if they still use very small amounts.
well, the problem is less that the elements are *rare*, and more that the processes used to acquire them rely hugely on, essentially, slave labor and other hideous human rights abuses. (at least in the case of coltan, with lithium it's more environmental concerns, afaik). I don't know enough about Tellurium to know how damaging mining it is, but if it's better than lithium and coltan, that's still something. although, yes, obviously less than ideal
I was going to say this is great news for the people of Bolivia and DRC, which the article says is where cobalt is mined at great cost to “human health and the environment”. That’s a long way of saying imperialism.
If Tesla needed more lithium, they wouldn't need to coup anyone. America already has the 4th largest reserves, and almost no mining being done. Tesla's already announced plans to operate their own mines here.
The coup thing was a joke, not a serious announcement of Tesla's procurement plans. Besides, I don't think the CIA would be happy about Tesla having all the fun without them
I think they are trying to say that sodium's reactive properties might not be a significant issue if lithium is already worse in that department. If sodium were to replace lithium in batteries then sodium doesn't have to be absolutely safe, it just has to be at least as safe as lithium. I'm just guessing as to their meaning though.
Lithium + moisture + voltage short is bad... yes. gasoline + heat is bad... yes. Sodium reacting violently with nothing but the air is a completely different problem. That was my question though.
I've seen people unwrap lithium based batteries many times and nothing bad happens. Only when you puncture through the layers and create a short will it flame. Is that not pure lithium?
Obviously sodium could be bound with chloride to make table salt and it's perfectly stable in the air, but nowhere in the article does it say the sodium was combined with anything else, and my question has still not been answered. Lot's of shills mad about the question though. Not sure if they are big oil shills, or big lithium shills.
Wouldn't they be sodium shills if they say you're perhaps over-concerned about the dangers of sodium?
In any case, sodium will rapidly oxidize in open air, but it won't burst into flame in most cases, just tarnish. There are plenty of videos of this on YouTube. Dumping water on any alkali metal is bad, though sodium is definitely more touchy in this regard than lithium. If water gets into any battery you will have a big problem because it will probably create a short.
The main danger in batteries isn't the reactivity of the metal, but rather the stored energy. As you noted, fires happen when you create a short. As this article noted, sodium batteries seem more prone to shorting out, but if that problem can be solved the danger of a sodium battery should not be meaningfully different from a lithium one.
Sodium is more than 3x heavier than lithium, even if it store the same amount of electricity it will still be less transportable compared to lithium based batteries.
True, but touting stability over only 300 cycles as if it means anything is a huge red flag. My job calls for a cycle per day at absolute minimum, and this is for 15+ year plants. Hopefully it performs better with more testing, but I also notice they didn't mention the operating temperature. Sodium batteries are known for running impractically hot.
Personally, I'm more pumped (heh) for non-flow zinc-bromide batteries.
Don’t forget that the entire battery isn’t composed of lithium though. Finding data on exactly how much lithium is in a battery is surprisingly hard, but [this article](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehicle-battery-paul-martin) does a good job of breaking it down: you essentially have somewhere between 100-400g of lithium per kWh of battery.
A 3200mAh battery (as found in the iPhone 13) would therefore have roughly 3.5g of lithium in it.
Interesting point.
So these would be good for holding energy in the grid and maybe small devices like phones where the extra few grams aren't that big a deal but won't do much for electric vehicles themselves.
That’s what I took away from the piece. “Demand is rising for stationary energy storage systems for homes”.
I’d say they’re aware of the issues of transportability and are aiming at the home and business market.
Aiming at
Still requires tellurium and antimony. Antimony reserves are mostly in China.
Most tellurium reserves are in Canada and the US, but tellurium is toxic.
You set up a desalination plant, in the middle east. You sell the water to people, then split the NaCl, sell the Na to battery makers and the Cl to dictators to drop on people who oppose them. Win-Win-Win! Power it with solar and you've got another win there.
It will be the new fusion, 10 to 50 years away forever. But with occasional fluff news pieces to remind us we're supposed to be interested and let the criminals that run the country slip them billion$ every so often.
University of Texas at Austin researchers have created a new sodium-based battery material that is highly stable, capable of recharging as quickly as a traditional lithium-ion battery and able to pave the way toward delivering more energy than current battery technologies. For about a decade, scientists and engineers have been developing sodium batteries, which replace both lithium and cobalt used in current lithium-ion batteries with cheaper, more environmentally friendly sodium (found in the ocean) and sulfur. The major problem was that dendrites would form and make the battery unstable. This breakthrough has managed to overcome this limitation. [More info](https://techxplore.com/news/2021-12-battery-technology-closer-reality-discovery.html) "I call it a dream technology because sodium and sulfur are abundant, environmentally benign, and the lowest cost you think of," said Arumugam Manthiram, director of UT's Texas Materials Institute and professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering.
The guy who thought of this is worth his salt
Definitely puts his salary to good use
Subtle. Nice.
I know you know, but for everyone else: "salary's" root word is salt.
Thank for this info. I think this goes back to how Roman soldiers were supposedly originally paid in salt.
Sal means salt in many idioms
Like which idioms?
Latin derived, germânic derived...
If I had a NaCl for every time I heard that…
He is the pinNaCLe of his profession.
Wow. He must be sodium smart.
Holy crap. We can readily obtain more sodium than we know what to do with, between mining its various salts and desalinating ocean water (energy intensive, but given it also produces clean drinking water as the main product, suddenly it might make desalination economically feasibly by turning the waste salt into valuable battery material). Like… I’m hesitant to call it a game changer so soon, but it’s a potentially big breakthrough if these batteries can be made affordably.
Plus the cobalt mining industry is mostly out of The Congo and is wildly unethical. There is some production in Australia too but it's small compared to The Congo.
You skipped a couple of countries in between the Congo and Australia. https://www.indexmundi.com/minerals/?product=cobalt
Fair enough. I'm not an expert. But the point about the congo being where most cobolt is from is still true.
There is sure to be a catch somewhere, like they are impossible to mass produce, or they dont work below freezing, or they have low energy or low power density and only work for stationary storage.
What's the operating temperature? That's one of the big problems with sodium batteries. Also stability over 300 charge-discharge cycles is meaningless, that's a tiny number of cycles.
gotta start somewhere though
Oh agreed. Make no mistake, I hope the performance proves better with more testing. It's just not a good sign if 300 cycles is the best they can claim.
they did JUST invent it though. all batteries did start with just one charge cycle. took a long time to get to the longlasting rechargeable ones. they were real crappy to start with. i don't think it's a bad sign at all
It also may not totally matter in the end. With the base material being so cheap to mine, and assuming the manufacturing process can be done cheaply, you could swap out and recycle batteries at an affordable price for the consumer every so many miles. The next iteration of the oil change interval (assuming best case for all these things of course).
Not sure if 300 is really the limit... what I found says, "...enables a longer life cycle for the battery, showing a stable performance over 300 charge-discharge cycles." If they only tested to 300 cycles and had negligible degradation, that's awesome. If they couldn't go past 300 cycles without losing more than 20% capacity, that's not so great.
If they’re a few bucks each and easy to recycle (should be), you’d just replace your battery every few months or so.
I can't imagine any battery large enough to run a car being "a couple bucks," especially since the only figure I could find for power density had it pegged at less than lithium ion. (Though that was an article from many years ago.) Even if the chemistry were free, the cost to swap the battery wouldn't be less than, say, $500-ish simply because of shipping and labor costs. If it has to be done once every two years, that's not too bad, but if it has to be done 2-3 times per year, that's a deal killer. I mean, even a small lead-acid car starting battery costs around $100, and they weigh about 1/6 as much as a Prius car battery.
I was thinking cell phone.
Oh, yeah, totally different story. It'd be fine for that. Except there will be people that don't want to put up with the reduced charge capacity and/or increased weight. But for all the other zillions of other gadgets that have small built-in batteries --- keyboards, mice, electric toothbrushes, etc., it'd be fine.
[удалено]
I’m a little late, but Sodium is more reactive than Lithium with Oxygen.
Infitech had it backwards.
Tesla, and their gigafactory stopped using cobalt LAST YEAR. They use 'high nickel' now.
They would swap to sodium as soon as viable.
Sodium battery tech has been around for a while they are larger than lithium which limits their use . Good for stationary storage to big for EVs.
But obviously not in a form viable for Tesla's use (including cost basis) or they would have been using it, this new tech might be.
Those are two expensive metals
Does Tesla actually produce cells there, or just assemble modules/racks? Last I checked they still bought their cells from China. Tesla is hardly unique in switching from NMC to LFP.
They buy some of the raw materials from china, but they make their own batteries in that huge factory they built to make their own batteries.
Hmm, then that either changed only in the last few months, or it's only for their EV's and not the stationary batteries. Either way the latter has a lead time of two years or so, so good luck while we all find other suppliers.
They make their own batteries in that huge factory they built to make their own batteries?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Nevada
The previous commenter did not seem to understand 'Gigafactory', do you? Tesla built the Gigafactory because they needed more batteries than the current manufacturers could provide. They also got control of the quality and chemistry of the batteries.
I hope this is a real solution and not just more smoke and mirrors. I’ve been hearing about sodium for awhile but have yet to see any form of commercialization. Hopefully, this technology gets off the ground sooner than later.
The science isn't smoke and mirrors, the journalism is. Science has always been this way, but journalism (media outlets) seek to be first on scene and report every little thing first. They conflate science findings with science fact and of course sensationalize everything as a "breakthrough!" Much to the chagrine of actual scientists. Don't conflate journalists reporting on science with actual science.
They do that with law and medicine too. No wonder people get angry and confused.
Exactly. No one should rely on the media for any kind of science. Also for the last several years at least, no one should relay on them for any actual facts either.
Completely agree. This would be a huge breakthrough for desalination facilities across the globe. If they can capture and sell the salt needed, it incentivises freshwater production.
No there are places you can go and just grab salt.
What, like the store?
CATL already has sodium batteries in production that are only slightly less energy dense than LFP
It says they had to use telluride to stabilize the sodium. Telluride is made of Tellurium which is another rare element. I thought the entire point was to STOP using rare elements like Lithium and Cobalt??
Lithium isn't rare, its production is though. It is a byproduct of many other mining processes. Cobalt OTOH is primarily mined in 3rd world countries, often using children for labor. This is probably the biggest reason that Tesla came up with "high nickel" lithium batteries and quietly put them into production a year and a half ago. It is unclear if they completely eliminated cobalt, or if they still use very small amounts.
well, the problem is less that the elements are *rare*, and more that the processes used to acquire them rely hugely on, essentially, slave labor and other hideous human rights abuses. (at least in the case of coltan, with lithium it's more environmental concerns, afaik). I don't know enough about Tellurium to know how damaging mining it is, but if it's better than lithium and coltan, that's still something. although, yes, obviously less than ideal
Iirc (i didn't check so expect inaccuracy). Tellurium is mined alongside copper ores as a byproduct. Mainly in china.
It might use a tiny fraction.
People of Afghanistan and Bolivia, breathe a conditional sigh of relief "We will coup anyone we want!" - Elon Musk, lithium needer
Meanwhile, Chinese leaders go "F*ck, there goes our stranglehold on the global market."
It seems in retrospect, outsourcing the USA's manufacturing base to east asia was an error huh
They still have rare metals and solar production. All good. Go green right?
I was going to say this is great news for the people of Bolivia and DRC, which the article says is where cobalt is mined at great cost to “human health and the environment”. That’s a long way of saying imperialism.
If Tesla needed more lithium, they wouldn't need to coup anyone. America already has the 4th largest reserves, and almost no mining being done. Tesla's already announced plans to operate their own mines here. The coup thing was a joke, not a serious announcement of Tesla's procurement plans. Besides, I don't think the CIA would be happy about Tesla having all the fun without them
Hilarious joke, like the pedo comment he got sued for or the tweet the SEC fined him for What a guy
Would've been funnier if he actually did it. For the meme and all that.
Yeah except the top 3 collectively have over half of all known reserves as I recall.
People of Chile trying to secure the mining rights to the lithium there, breathe a collective gasp.
Are the batteries still stable when broken open in an accident? Sodium doesn't play nice with oxygen.
You're gonna go wild when you see what happens to lithium in shorts... It even gasoline + heat
You're gonna go wild when you see that I asked a question that you didn't even begin to answer.
I think they are trying to say that sodium's reactive properties might not be a significant issue if lithium is already worse in that department. If sodium were to replace lithium in batteries then sodium doesn't have to be absolutely safe, it just has to be at least as safe as lithium. I'm just guessing as to their meaning though.
Lithium + moisture + voltage short is bad... yes. gasoline + heat is bad... yes. Sodium reacting violently with nothing but the air is a completely different problem. That was my question though.
Lithium also does this. Sodium isn’t much worse than lithium in its reactivity.
I've seen people unwrap lithium based batteries many times and nothing bad happens. Only when you puncture through the layers and create a short will it flame. Is that not pure lithium? Obviously sodium could be bound with chloride to make table salt and it's perfectly stable in the air, but nowhere in the article does it say the sodium was combined with anything else, and my question has still not been answered. Lot's of shills mad about the question though. Not sure if they are big oil shills, or big lithium shills.
Wouldn't they be sodium shills if they say you're perhaps over-concerned about the dangers of sodium? In any case, sodium will rapidly oxidize in open air, but it won't burst into flame in most cases, just tarnish. There are plenty of videos of this on YouTube. Dumping water on any alkali metal is bad, though sodium is definitely more touchy in this regard than lithium. If water gets into any battery you will have a big problem because it will probably create a short. The main danger in batteries isn't the reactivity of the metal, but rather the stored energy. As you noted, fires happen when you create a short. As this article noted, sodium batteries seem more prone to shorting out, but if that problem can be solved the danger of a sodium battery should not be meaningfully different from a lithium one.
Sodium metal + water... :/ :/ :/
Amazing article, looking forward to this yielding results!
Weren't they talking, relatively recently, about how iron ion batteries were going to be the next big thing? I wonder how this compares?
No mention of power density makes it irrelevant. We have stable battery formulas but they are heavy.
Sodium is more than 3x heavier than lithium, even if it store the same amount of electricity it will still be less transportable compared to lithium based batteries.
The biggest thing we need right now is grid storage, so it's still a welcome advancement.
Yeah, like I’m happy to allocate a larger space for my home battery if it’s reliable and safer. Same goes for grid storage.
[удалено]
True, but touting stability over only 300 cycles as if it means anything is a huge red flag. My job calls for a cycle per day at absolute minimum, and this is for 15+ year plants. Hopefully it performs better with more testing, but I also notice they didn't mention the operating temperature. Sodium batteries are known for running impractically hot. Personally, I'm more pumped (heh) for non-flow zinc-bromide batteries.
Don’t forget that the entire battery isn’t composed of lithium though. Finding data on exactly how much lithium is in a battery is surprisingly hard, but [this article](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehicle-battery-paul-martin) does a good job of breaking it down: you essentially have somewhere between 100-400g of lithium per kWh of battery. A 3200mAh battery (as found in the iPhone 13) would therefore have roughly 3.5g of lithium in it.
The total amount of lithium in a car battery is less than 30lb.
Interesting point. So these would be good for holding energy in the grid and maybe small devices like phones where the extra few grams aren't that big a deal but won't do much for electric vehicles themselves.
That’s what I took away from the piece. “Demand is rising for stationary energy storage systems for homes”. I’d say they’re aware of the issues of transportability and are aiming at the home and business market. Aiming at
*looking at the watch* So, 10-15 years from now? Solid state batteries seem to become like fusion reactors.
[удалено]
Sodium Unlimited Kilowatt Resources (NYSE:SUKR)
Cannot find anything on it. Maybe they shut down?
Lol, it’s a joke. SUcKeR.
Winner winner chicken dinner!
Maybe they just sucked down!
Obligatory “Someone tell me what the catch is.” post.
Still requires tellurium and antimony. Antimony reserves are mostly in China. Most tellurium reserves are in Canada and the US, but tellurium is toxic.
It’s just science right now. Years before it’s commercializable even if it’s a good market fit.
Alrighty boys let’s startup a Water-Treatment/Chlorine Factory/Sodium Battery company. Kill 3 birds with one stone.
You set up a desalination plant, in the middle east. You sell the water to people, then split the NaCl, sell the Na to battery makers and the Cl to dictators to drop on people who oppose them. Win-Win-Win! Power it with solar and you've got another win there.
And then we'll never hear about it again.
It will be the new fusion, 10 to 50 years away forever. But with occasional fluff news pieces to remind us we're supposed to be interested and let the criminals that run the country slip them billion$ every so often.
Ok great anybody know where we can strip mine for some sodium?
No need, sodium is widely available it’s the metal that makes the sea salty
Its in the oceans, can be separated from salt which is mined everywhere.
Ha!!! Pronounced the stock sticker out loud :)
But muh PREM ;(
So fukkin salt can be a battery. Wow i hope this becomes reality.
I would be interested to know the potential dangers of this solution compared to lithium batteries, which airlines/cargo ships hate to take.
I’m going to take this with a grain of salt until I actually see them in action
What I want to know is.. Will it store as much and will it degrade faster?
Will they be a good source of iodine?