12 ms·
Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium
- swayvil 3y agoFYI : Lithium and Sodium are both substances that explode when you drop them in water. I wonder what the connection is.
- tromp 3y agoPrevious discussion on CATL's Sodium-Ion battery: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33750955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33750955
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoYeah the ignorance here is pretty strong. Unless all these people have inside knowledge that CATL's claimed density and specs are BS. CATL's Sodium Ion is 160 wh/kg. That's basically LFP, and LFP means a 200-300 mile car, and supposed to scale to $40/kwhr (cell level) which implies a drivetrain cost at initial purchase that is almost physically impossible for ICE to match. Roadmap is 200 wh/kg, and while roadmaps are often a bit optimistic from chinese manufacturers timewise, they do seem to hit the densities. The other big news is CATL is doing 200+ wh/kg LFP, and of course has roadmaps for 230+. We shall see, but if CATL and others meet the cost and density estimates with acceptable cycle endurance and safety, it is a clear path to probably 3-4 billion EVs. And if Sodium-Sulfur and Lithium-Sulfur succeed ... that should be 2x to 3x the power density
- Gasp0de 3y agohttps://archive.ph/SHBJ7 https://archive.ph/SHBJ7
- NikkiA 3y agoTIL that Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and Australia are all part of 'China'
- megaman821 3y agoThose countries have lithium mines, but do they have substantial lithium refineries? I believe they just ship all their lithium to China.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoYa, mostly in China because they do it so cheaply, and aren't really concerned with the environmental consequences of cheaper refining processes. The market demands lower prices before anything else.
- crazygringo 3y agoWhat are you talking about? Nothing in the article even remotely suggests that. What it does say is that most of the world's refining of lithium takes place in China. It's right there in the subtitle: "Lithium is relatively scarce and mostly refined in China."
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- scythe 3y agoThis is the short version of The Economist's piece on sodium batteries. For headline stories there is often a short and a long version. The long version is linked in the article or you can find it here: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/10/25/firms-are-exploring-sodium-batteries-as-an-alternative-to-lithium https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/10/25/... https://archive.ph/Tw4Gj https://archive.ph/Tw4Gj
- dctoedt 3y agoIt'll be interesting to see whether there might be any kind of late-mover advantage for those who sat out lithium and begin pursuing sodium-based batteries now.
- recursive 3y agoSodium is not competitive with lithium for energy density, as measured in joules/gram. Sodium is good for stationary deployments. It's not good when weight matters.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoI wonder how well it suits home storage? Not being violently flammable would be a bonus for homeowners
- bogeholm 3y agoSodium + water is, unfortunately, violently flammable. Add water to elemental sodium, and you get heat, hydrogen gas and sodium hydroxide.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoI'm not sure how it's held in the proposed batteries, but isn't pure Sodium violently explosive when in contact with water?
- djbusby 3y agoBatteries aren't pure sodium. Pure sodium bonded with something (eg: chlorine) is less explosive.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoAny concentration of energy (gasoline, batteries, compressed air, etc) is always a potential bomb if it is released too quickly.
- jeffbee 3y agoAcquiring sodium wrecks the landscape to the exact same extent as does lithium extraction. The only differences between them are 1) we already wrecked all the territory for sodium, so fallacious sunk-cost thinking kicks in, and 2) there is not (yet) a dedicated astroturf campaign funded by oil companies against sodium.
- chris_va 3y agoSaltwater
- RandomLensman 3y agoMuch easier to get sodium than lithium, concentration is much higher and there is much more sodium than lithium in/on the earth's crust. Salt for batteries might also be a tougher target for any campaigns against it.
- biomcgary 3y agoWe just need to combine desalination for drinking water with sodium extraction for batteries. Solves some of the ecological problems from doing each in isolation.
- fooker 3y agoThis requires a massive amount of electricity, unrealistic until maybe fusion is commonplace.
- margalabargala 3y agoWhat would be the additional massive amount of energy usage to capture the sodium output of the many, many already existing and economical desalination plants?
- hattmall 3y agobreaking apart the salt into sodium would be very energy intensive I think.
- _ea1k 3y agoIt doesn't seem like lithium is actually scarce. Does this help with the more tricky issues developing at the moment? For example, graphite?
- paiute 3y agoThis is a decent nerd video that talks about lithium mining. I enjoyed it. Skip to 13 min for the answer . https://www.youtube.com/live/inq_ypJeiZk?si=o34J3qJVNoDJ2FBy https://www.youtube.com/live/inq_ypJeiZk?si=o34J3qJVNoDJ2FBy
- bee_rider 3y agoI did, but I think the answer was kind of jargony or, at least, I didn’t get it. It sounds like she was saying that it exists all over the place in small amounts because it doesn’t like to be a solid? I think it is an interesting lecture if you are interested in a sort of geographical answer of where they might look for it, but at least after skipping around a bit and watching some stretches at double speed, she hasn’t gotten to the sort of economic answer of, like, do there exist sources that can turned into batteries easily (since we are mostly programmers who mostly care about whether or not the batteries will exist to power the devices we want to program).
- ethbr1 3y agoAfaik, > do there exist sources that can turned into batteries easily Yes, but only a few. There aren't many high-concentration lithium deposits. (There are many more low-concentration) Which is essentially the mining industry in a nutshell: concentration of raw mined feedstock -> economically efficient processing -> finished product (bought by consumers who don't care where it came from, and so has a single market price) See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_carbonate#Production https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_carbonate#Production
- opencl 3y agoLithium isn't scarce relative to current demand levels but if the automotive industry wants to transition to 100% EVs that's an enormous increase in demand.
- somethoughts 3y agoI'd be curious to know if any US companies are working on such technology? Perhaps 3M? [Update] Watched a CNBC video[1] and found one in Silicon Valley. https://natron.energy/news-and-events/ https://natron.energy/news-and-events/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQE56ksVBB4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQE56ksVBB4
- malchow 3y agoYes, Spencer Gore is working on it: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-electric-a-startup-emerges-to-produce-sodium-ion-batteries-in-the-u-s https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-electric-a-start...
- PaulKeeble 3y agoThey don't mention it in this article but the big positive going for Sodium batteries is the cost, they are half the price of li-ion per KWH and about a third the price of Li-Pho. There are already quite cheap Sodium battery based cars out from BYD and while they are the lower range end of things (200 miles) they are also considerably cheaper. So I think Sodium will find its way into the lower range EVs and home/grid storage since its so much cheaper. But I don't imagine we will want less power in phones or laptops as sodium is bigger and heavier.
- kylebenzle 3y agoWhy do you say they don't mention the cost? I'm sorry but like that's what the ENTIRE article is about, the cost savings of sodium batteries over lithium.
- PaulKeeble 3y agoThe only mention they have of cost is "Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts." They do not mention its a half to a third the price of the two prevailing technologies and they they have weaselled it with "should". It does cost less already, you have been able to buy sodium ion batteries on aliexpress for months and the cars are already out from BYD and many more are scheduled later this year and into next. The article is mostly about the geopolitics of the materials. So I stand by they don't mention it, I read that article and I felt this was the key missing context as to why Sodium batteries are going to matter.
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y agoThey are also one band lower on the periodic table. That's a lot of mass, and the ionization metrics are worse.
- pfdietz 3y agoLithium is only a small fraction of the mass of Li-ion batteries. Also, Li does not change oxidation state in Li-ion batteries, so its energy of ionization doesn't affect the voltage of the cell.
- bill38 3y agoSodium is tricky too. It reacts violently to water. Even humidity in the air can make it explode.
- rini17 3y agoLithium is only a bit better, in practice it requires exactly the same precautions.
- pfdietz 3y agoThe lithium in Li-ion batteries is never in metallic form. I believe the sodium batteries being discussed here also leave the sodium in ionic form.
- rini17 3y agoThere are plenty of li-ion battery dismantling vids, with lithium clearly in metallic form.
- pfdietz 3y agoOr, you are seeing metallic electrodes or other current carrying connectors that are not made of lithium.
- vardump 3y agoPerhaps a result of overcharging lithium cells? That's known to cause metallic lithium plating, definitely not a normal or a desired state in a Li-ion cell.
- rini17 3y agoI have no idea. In any case the sodium chemistry is very similar.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoAs would be evidenced by kitchen salt exploding in your face when you use it. Oh wait. Not a thing.
- margalabargala 3y agoIs there anywhere where I, a consumer, can buy sodium ion batteries online right now at any price?
- interroboink 3y agoSure, look on aliexpress.com, for instance. [1] I'll hold back from giving you a let-me-google-that-for-you link (: [1] https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805680782897.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805680782897.html
- margalabargala 3y agoThis is new! The only ones available when I last looked a few months ago were mislabeled li-ion batteries. This is great, though. Thank you. EDIT: my understanding was that one of the major benefits of sodium ion batteries was their ability to discharge down to 0V. These appear to all have low voltage cutoff marks. EDIT EDIT: some available do list 0V discharge, though nothing looks like it will ship until 2024.
- NonEUCitizen 3y agoWhen they reach the end of their lifecycles, would one be able to find recycling places that accept them?
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoSodium batteries looks great on the outside, but amount of charge discharge cycles is roughly half what lithium batteries can do. So what you will save on cost difference between sodium and lithium will get eaten up by shorter life of sodium battery.
- vardump 3y agoA really bold claim, any sources? Please remember there are a lot of different sodium-ion chemistries.
- mattmaroon 3y agoThat’s fine though. Thanks to time value of money, if it costs half as much but has to be replaced in half the time it’s actually quite profitable. (Assuming, of course, the labor cost is low.) If they can be recycled like lithium, even better.
- thfuran 3y agoAs long as you want to watch the world burn.
- jtriangle 3y agoUnderstand that, they're about half the cost of lithium currently, but they don't have nearly the same scale benefit as lithium does. It's likely that cost could half again if they achieved the same scale. And recall that, early lithium batteries had a fraction of the longevity that current designs have, so, it's likely that sodium batteries have plenty of room for improvement in that regard as well. In my mind, the likely application is grid-scale storage where density doesn't matter as much but upfront cost does. Not really so much for renewables, but more so that you can store your unused base load during offpeak hours for later use.
- mips_r4300i 3y agoThat's true, which makes them perfect for Powerwall-type backup power, where weight is not a concern and the number of cycles will be very low. The other way to deal with low cycle count is to keep the cells only half-charged and minimize the excursions from that. A large pack that goes from 40 to 60 percent daily will last eons compared to one cycled from 90 to 10 percent. From what I understand, the degradation of the cell is not linear with the discharge excursion. So you may have exponentially better battery life the narrower of charge band you keep it in. If anyone has more detailed information let me know, I'd like to see better numbers.
- gumby 3y ago> Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of sodium batteries is their late start. Sodium batteries have a long history. I know the US Navy was using them for batteries on their submarines back in the 70s, and they surely started long before then. Lead-acid batteries emit H2 which would be a disaster in a sub. On problem I remember about them was that they run very hot, and are liable to catch fire. Perhaps that has been solved in the last five decades!
- MisterTea 3y agoYou may be thinking of molten salt batteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery
- datameta 3y agoApparently the non-rechargeable version is the primary power source of AAM, SAM, and cruise missiles. The interesting thing is before use the salt is solid and inert (without degradation in a long-term stockpile) but once triggered with a pyrotechnic primer they reach an operating temperature of 400-550 for the single use lifetime.
- pfdietz 3y agoThose were likely sodium-sulfur batteries. They employ diffusion of sodium ions through a hot ionic conductor, beta-alumina. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery
- mattmaroon 3y agoIf news outlets took all of the money they have spent paying writers to tell us that a new battery technology will be here any day now, they probably could have funded one that actually will be here any day now.
- oldbbsnickname 3y agoA failure to appreciate both are alkali metals.
- nologic01 3y agoSomething that will complicate technological solutions going forward is the need to have no negative environmental impacts across the entire lifecycle of any new contraptions, under a scenario where they are produced, used and recycled at planetary scale and for... a long time. These types of constraints did not exist in the earlier technological innovation eras but are sort-of self-evident now: There is not much point to do embark on expensive retooling of the entire energy system if it simply results in a sort of "footprint-shift", reduce GHG emissions but increase environmental impacts elsewhere. The article (and links therein) don't provide an immediate view on these aspects of different approaches to battery construction. Maybe it is too early in the cycle. But I think these issues will have to be explored thoroughly for any solution that is deemed technically and economically viable.
- m463 3y agoHeavy and cheap would be wonderful for home batteries. I wonder how much of the cost of home batteries involves shipping costs though.
- wkat4242 3y agoIs this better from a safety standpoint? All I remember from sodium in its normal metal form in school was that it had to be kept in a bottle of oil because as soon as it gets into contact with oxygen it spontaneously combusts.. Which is exactly the problem with lithium cells too.