5 ms·

Sodium ion batteries work just as well and should be arriving this year [1]. [1] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-top-ev-battery-maker-catl-touts-ne

by snarfy 4y ago

Sodium ion batteries work just as well and should be arriving this year [1]. [1] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-top-ev-battery-maker-catl-touts-new-sodium-ion-batteries-2021-07-29/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-top-ev-battery-mak...

imachine1980_ 4y ago
Sodium ion batteries are less dense than lithium have a third of the range, I'm live in argentine and see the destruction of open mining for rare metals for cents, make me wish this happens, but for now dense electric cars of not low range will probably use lithium and smartphones and notebook probably will continue to use lithium for long time, maybe be replaced by graphen but in the long game.
- DLwdTxdU6smHQA 4y ago
  > Sodium ion batteries are less dense than lithium have a third of the range Got a source for the "one third" part? According to [1] and [2] lithium ion is up to 265 Wh/kg and sodium ion has 160 Wh/kg. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/30/catl-reveals-sodium-ion-battery-with-160-wh-kg-energy-density/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/30/catl-reveals-sodium-ion... edited for clarity
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > lithium ion is up to 265 Wh/kg and sodium ion has 160 Wh/kg This is what less dense means.
    - DLwdTxdU6smHQA 4y ago
      sure. but it seems one third of the range seems too pessimistic according to those numbers.
      - AstralStorm 4y ago
        Sodium is about half the range with the older unimproved designs (new experimental ones are closer to parity with li-ion), it's better than the density number suggests because it's lower internal resistance - less steep discharge curve than li-ion.
  - malandrew 4y ago
    What is the energy density by volume? Which is more important for cars? Weight or volume? I would imagine that volume ultimately controls how much you can fit and that weight just negatively affects range of you have too much.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    And keep in mind the Nickel-Cobalt Lithium ion chemistries are responsible for the "battery fire" Tesla stories. So the Nickel-Cobalt batteries require a lot of cooling and safety systems. So this reduces the PACK level density to 60-70% from the lofty cell densities. So 240 wh/kg nickel cobalt chems drop to 160-180 at pack level. LFP and Sodium Ion do not have such issues. They are inherently safer, so the Pack densities are potentially 90-95% of cell density with good design. And to emphasize, CATL is putting into PRODUCTION in 2023 160 wh/kg sodium ion. The other trick is to mix lithium and sodium ion cells in the same pack. So you do half at 160 wh/kg sodium, and half at 210 wh/kg LFP (LFP is hitting that in 2023 as well), then you get 185 wh/kg effectively. IMO this Sodium Ion announcement marks when/where the barrier to electrifying 80-90% of consumer transportation AND allow India and China to get their own cars. It should just be a factory scaling issue now. IMO this means the BEV drivetrain will be fundamentally cheaper than the ICE drivetrain by 30% in possibly 2-3 years. ICE cars will simply not be price competitive. The BEV will accelerate better, smoother, more reliable, be cheaper in maintenance, more torque/towing ability, AND it will be cheaper when you buy a new car. That's for a 300 mile fast-charge electric car, with roadmaps to 400 mile with 200 wh/kg sodium ion. Again, if sodium sulfur hits 2x to that (the research papers say 3-4x) in 5-10 years, that means the number of cells and cost to make the car and vehicle weight all drop that much more. You'll have 500-600 mile range cars that possibly cost half of what an ICE drivetrain would.
- powerbroker 4y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, aren't the Argentine mines brine-based? These aren't your typical 'pit' mines. Furthermore, isn't the location of these mines in the arid high plateau near the Andes?
- zackmorris 4y ago
  Looks like lithium ion battery density has tripled since 2010 from about 100 Wh/kg to 300 Wh/kg: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-ion-battery-cell-densities-have-almost-tripled-since-2010/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-io... 160 Wh/kg for sodium ion would be higher than the ~105 Wh/kg LMO cathode and about in line with LCO, LMO/LNO and NMC cathodes up through 2012. I think LMO is lithium manganese oxide, which might be the same type of battery as in my 2013 Nissan Leaf. Mine's 24 kWh, but they're up to 62 kWh now: https://www.batterydesign.net/nissan-leaf/ https://www.batterydesign.net/nissan-leaf/ They use AESC cells, which are 80% nickel with a Ni-Mn-Co mix: https://insideevs.com/news/348513/envision-aesc-ncm-811-batteries/ https://insideevs.com/news/348513/envision-aesc-ncm-811-batt... Perhaps better cathodes could double sodium ion battery density over the next decade?
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/10/catl-will-mass-produce-sodium-ion-batteries-in-2023.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/10/catl-will-mass-produce... In mass production this year in China will be 160 wh/kg Sodium Ion and the company claims it can be 90-95% density cell-to-pack because sodium ion is like LFP: doesn't require as much safety stuff as the nickel-cobalt chemistries (which reduces pack density to only 60-70% of the cell density). That's (based on current reputed pack densities of Tesla Model 3 SRs) good enough for the 300 mile consumer BEV. As in, the city car for a huge percentage of the world population. I believe the roadmap is to get sodium ion to 200 wh/kg in a couple years, with good CTP yield means 400 mile cars like Model S. NO LITHIUM. NO NICKEL. NO COBALT. Sodium Sulfur will probably happen in another 10 years based on papers. That may offer 400-500 wh/kg IIRC.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
Given that they still have lower energy density and fewer charge-discharge cycles, I'd say we can be optimistic for the future but we can't currently claim that they work "just as well".
Communitivity 4y ago
Sodium ion batteries are even better in one respect, they are not as easy to catch on fire, they do not produce the kind of fires lithium batteries do, or give off the same poisonous (and sometimes explosive) gases. It can take over 3000 gallons of water to put out a Li ion car fire (and that fire can re-ignite weeks after due to the chemicals and stored energy) [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWq-Mq1Uqpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWq-Mq1Uqpw
- amelius 4y ago
  Here they discuss what would happen if you dump a ton of sodium in a large pool of water: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-you-were-to-dump-a-ton-of-sodium- https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-you-were-to-dump-... into-the-middle-of-an-ocean-sized-pool-of-water And here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM
  - Communitivity 4y ago
    I said they were safer, not completely safe. If a fire happened with a Sodium EV I suspect they'd treat it as a grease fire and try to put it out with chemicals not water, but I am not a firefighter.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    Sodium sulfur battery however readily forms a sulfate salt with a hot steam explosion, which is different from sodium metal alone. Lithium battery emits lots of hydrogen gas alongside being super hot which makes for a bigger boom and hot fire that will burn underwater.
  - was_a_dev 4y ago
    This is like arguing water is dangerous to drink as it contains hydrogen, which explodes.
scythe 4y ago
If they're really arriving this year, I would expect an update that is more recent than Q3 2021. Lithium-ion batteries have existed for many decades. It's not like nobody ever thought about using sodium, which is the most obvious substitution. The problem is that sodium has a much larger ionic radius, which means that inserting and removing it from the cathode tends to wear that out a lot quicker. As a result, most sodium-ion cathodes are doped manganese oxides, which is basically ignored for lithium batteries since its energy density is low. Even with this, the lifetimes are not ideal. PNNL announced a breakthrough this July in a nickel-based sodium-ion cathode, but the cycle life (90% at 300, suggesting 80% at ~650) is still significantly shorter than what we expect from lithium (80% at >1000), and any NiO2-based cathode is going to carry an exothermic decomposition risk, electrolyte (Na or Li) notwithstanding. PNNL claims they are competitive with the state of the art in longevity for all Na-ion batteries. Also, the PNNL battery uses 10% cobalt to achieve this. https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/longer-lasting-sodium-ion-batteries-horizon https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/longer-lasting-sodium-ion-ba... I expect CATL to release Na-ion batteries for the very-low-cost vehicle market in China, which is not what Americans have come to expect from cars.

by snarfy 4y ago

imachine1980_ 4y ago

Sodium ion batteries are less dense than lithium have a third of the range, I'm live in argentine and see the destruction of open mining for rare metals for cents, make me wish this happens, but for now dense electric cars of not low range will probably use lithium and smartphones and notebook probably will continue to use lithium for long time, maybe be replaced by graphen but in the long game.

DLwdTxdU6smHQA 4y ago
> Sodium ion batteries are less dense than lithium have a third of the range Got a source for the "one third" part? According to [1] and [2] lithium ion is up to 265 Wh/kg and sodium ion has 160 Wh/kg. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/30/catl-reveals-sodium-ion-battery-with-160-wh-kg-energy-density/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/30/catl-reveals-sodium-ion... edited for clarity
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > lithium ion is up to 265 Wh/kg and sodium ion has 160 Wh/kg This is what less dense means.
  - DLwdTxdU6smHQA 4y ago
    sure. but it seems one third of the range seems too pessimistic according to those numbers.
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      Sodium is about half the range with the older unimproved designs (new experimental ones are closer to parity with li-ion), it's better than the density number suggests because it's lower internal resistance - less steep discharge curve than li-ion.
- malandrew 4y ago
  What is the energy density by volume? Which is more important for cars? Weight or volume? I would imagine that volume ultimately controls how much you can fit and that weight just negatively affects range of you have too much.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  And keep in mind the Nickel-Cobalt Lithium ion chemistries are responsible for the "battery fire" Tesla stories. So the Nickel-Cobalt batteries require a lot of cooling and safety systems. So this reduces the PACK level density to 60-70% from the lofty cell densities. So 240 wh/kg nickel cobalt chems drop to 160-180 at pack level. LFP and Sodium Ion do not have such issues. They are inherently safer, so the Pack densities are potentially 90-95% of cell density with good design. And to emphasize, CATL is putting into PRODUCTION in 2023 160 wh/kg sodium ion. The other trick is to mix lithium and sodium ion cells in the same pack. So you do half at 160 wh/kg sodium, and half at 210 wh/kg LFP (LFP is hitting that in 2023 as well), then you get 185 wh/kg effectively. IMO this Sodium Ion announcement marks when/where the barrier to electrifying 80-90% of consumer transportation AND allow India and China to get their own cars. It should just be a factory scaling issue now. IMO this means the BEV drivetrain will be fundamentally cheaper than the ICE drivetrain by 30% in possibly 2-3 years. ICE cars will simply not be price competitive. The BEV will accelerate better, smoother, more reliable, be cheaper in maintenance, more torque/towing ability, AND it will be cheaper when you buy a new car. That's for a 300 mile fast-charge electric car, with roadmaps to 400 mile with 200 wh/kg sodium ion. Again, if sodium sulfur hits 2x to that (the research papers say 3-4x) in 5-10 years, that means the number of cells and cost to make the car and vehicle weight all drop that much more. You'll have 500-600 mile range cars that possibly cost half of what an ICE drivetrain would.
powerbroker 4y ago
If I'm not mistaken, aren't the Argentine mines brine-based? These aren't your typical 'pit' mines. Furthermore, isn't the location of these mines in the arid high plateau near the Andes?
zackmorris 4y ago
Looks like lithium ion battery density has tripled since 2010 from about 100 Wh/kg to 300 Wh/kg: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-ion-battery-cell-densities-have-almost-tripled-since-2010/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-io... 160 Wh/kg for sodium ion would be higher than the ~105 Wh/kg LMO cathode and about in line with LCO, LMO/LNO and NMC cathodes up through 2012. I think LMO is lithium manganese oxide, which might be the same type of battery as in my 2013 Nissan Leaf. Mine's 24 kWh, but they're up to 62 kWh now: https://www.batterydesign.net/nissan-leaf/ https://www.batterydesign.net/nissan-leaf/ They use AESC cells, which are 80% nickel with a Ni-Mn-Co mix: https://insideevs.com/news/348513/envision-aesc-ncm-811-batteries/ https://insideevs.com/news/348513/envision-aesc-ncm-811-batt... Perhaps better cathodes could double sodium ion battery density over the next decade?
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/10/catl-will-mass-produce-sodium-ion-batteries-in-2023.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/10/catl-will-mass-produce... In mass production this year in China will be 160 wh/kg Sodium Ion and the company claims it can be 90-95% density cell-to-pack because sodium ion is like LFP: doesn't require as much safety stuff as the nickel-cobalt chemistries (which reduces pack density to only 60-70% of the cell density). That's (based on current reputed pack densities of Tesla Model 3 SRs) good enough for the 300 mile consumer BEV. As in, the city car for a huge percentage of the world population. I believe the roadmap is to get sodium ion to 200 wh/kg in a couple years, with good CTP yield means 400 mile cars like Model S. NO LITHIUM. NO NICKEL. NO COBALT. Sodium Sulfur will probably happen in another 10 years based on papers. That may offer 400-500 wh/kg IIRC.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

Given that they still have lower energy density and fewer charge-discharge cycles, I'd say we can be optimistic for the future but we can't currently claim that they work "just as well".

Communitivity 4y ago

Sodium ion batteries are even better in one respect, they are not as easy to catch on fire, they do not produce the kind of fires lithium batteries do, or give off the same poisonous (and sometimes explosive) gases. It can take over 3000 gallons of water to put out a Li ion car fire (and that fire can re-ignite weeks after due to the chemicals and stored energy) [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWq-Mq1Uqpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWq-Mq1Uqpw

amelius 4y ago
Here they discuss what would happen if you dump a ton of sodium in a large pool of water: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-you-were-to-dump-a-ton-of-sodium- https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-you-were-to-dump-... into-the-middle-of-an-ocean-sized-pool-of-water And here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM
- Communitivity 4y ago
  I said they were safer, not completely safe. If a fire happened with a Sodium EV I suspect they'd treat it as a grease fire and try to put it out with chemicals not water, but I am not a firefighter.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Sodium sulfur battery however readily forms a sulfate salt with a hot steam explosion, which is different from sodium metal alone. Lithium battery emits lots of hydrogen gas alongside being super hot which makes for a bigger boom and hot fire that will burn underwater.
- was_a_dev 4y ago
  This is like arguing water is dangerous to drink as it contains hydrogen, which explodes.

scythe 4y ago

If they're really arriving this year, I would expect an update that is more recent than Q3 2021. Lithium-ion batteries have existed for many decades. It's not like nobody ever thought about using sodium, which is the most obvious substitution. The problem is that sodium has a much larger ionic radius, which means that inserting and removing it from the cathode tends to wear that out a lot quicker. As a result, most sodium-ion cathodes are doped manganese oxides, which is basically ignored for lithium batteries since its energy density is low. Even with this, the lifetimes are not ideal. PNNL announced a breakthrough this July in a nickel-based sodium-ion cathode, but the cycle life (90% at 300, suggesting 80% at ~650) is still significantly shorter than what we expect from lithium (80% at >1000), and any NiO2-based cathode is going to carry an exothermic decomposition risk, electrolyte (Na or Li) notwithstanding. PNNL claims they are competitive with the state of the art in longevity for all Na-ion batteries. Also, the PNNL battery uses 10% cobalt to achieve this. https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/longer-lasting-sodium-ion-batteries-horizon https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/longer-lasting-sodium-ion-ba... I expect CATL to release Na-ion batteries for the very-low-cost vehicle market in China, which is not what Americans have come to expect from cars.