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This summer a French company started to sell sodium ion battery power tool in a major hardware store. National French research agency announcement: https://www

This summer a French company started to sell sodium ion battery power tool in a major hardware store. National French research agency announcement: https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/batteries-sodium-ion-une-premiere-mondiale-dont-nous-sommes-tres-fiers https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/batteries-sodium-ion-une-pre... The power tool : https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/outillage/outillage-electroportatif/visseuse-et-tournevis-electrique/visseuse/tournevis-sans-fil-dexter-sodium-3-6-v-0-7-ah-86650845.html?src=clk https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/outillage/outillage-elec... Unfortunately, all I could found about the Wh/kg efficiency was an article about the same company saying they were currently able to build cells at 90Wh/Kg in 2017. Nevertheless, it's not a promise, it's a product currently on sale.

IgorPartola 3y ago
The entire product weighs 0.5 kg, and it is 0.7A at 3.6V. I assume the amp rating is really amp-hours, which would give it 2.52Wh. Figure the battery is half the weight of the tool, which would give it roughly 10Wh/kg.
- sylario 3y ago
  The spec sheet on the store is confusing. It says : Intensity(Ah) Less than 1.5 Tension (V) 3.6 Amperage (Ah) 0.7 Edit : the box indicate 0.33 Kg, the 0.5 weight probably include the charger and other parts.
- masklinn 3y ago
  According to https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378775323011175 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03787... the batteries Tiamat produces are 18650 format, 3.7V, 0.61Ah. The latter more or less matches the specs of the product. This would mean the product might have a single 34g battery with a specific energy of 68Wh/kg, and 135Wh/L. So low end of nimh. Which sounds somewhat reasonable, 10 (and around 20Wh/L) I don’t think you’d bother even going forwards with. Sadly I can’t find any teardown of the product, it’s all just press reprints. There’s a split view PDF (in the documents section), it doesn’t seem to show the battery but does not show a huge amount of space for it.
  - aredox 3y ago
    I got the same 68 Wh/kg from this report: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2023/10/20231030-tiamat.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2023/10/20231030-tiamat.htm...
  - foobarian 3y ago
    Low end of Nimh doesn't sound very great, but - what if you could get 18650 cells for (making up a small number) $0.50 each? I think I would end up with a box full and just swap them as I use them. Even better if they retain charge well.
    - aredox 3y ago
      It has other great advantages over NiMH: fast charging, no memory effect, no self-discharge
      - foobarian 3y ago
        Absolutely! However my baseline are my Li-ion 18650 cells which have those advantages as well, in addition to larger capacity. But I think I would be willing to give up the capacity if the price was much lower.
        seec 3y ago
        Yeah, considering the tradeoffs it has to be much cheaper to be worthwhile. I would say 5-7 euros per cell retail to be worth considering. Otherwise why bother ?
      - orangepurple 3y ago
        NiMH doesn't have noticable memory effect. NiCd does.
      - tzs 3y ago
        NiMH self-discharge is low enough to not matter for most applications. 5th generation Panasonic Eneloop is 90% after 1 year of storage, 80% after 3 years, 75% after 5 years, and 70% after 10 years.
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  How much of that weight is the essential weight of the battery, and how much is consumer-friendly outer shell, electronics, other one-offs etc.? I.e. if you wanted to take the same tech, put it in a non-consumer-facing context (say a grid-scale battery) and wanted to make it 100x the capacity, would it be 100x the weight? I can imagine a lot of the weight of the battery unit itself isn't necessarily the battery, if that makes sense.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
hbossy 3y ago
It's the first time a captcha tool flagged me as robot and banned from their site.
- tacker2000 3y ago
  Same here
  - j-a-a-p 3y ago
    00100011 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101111 01101111
    - neonroku 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - dylan604 3y ago
    They're French. They don't care about your suffering <puffs on cigarette>
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- TomK32 3y ago
  I didn't even get to a captcha
  - computerfriend 3y ago
    > There is a robot on the same network [...] as you.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- frafra 3y ago
  They are banning entire countries (violating the EU geo-blocking directive as well, probably).
aidog 3y ago
[flagged]
ChumpGPT 3y ago
Banned for using a VPN.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- metadat 3y ago
  I got banned and am not even using a VPN! Overly aggressive bot protection.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142135/https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/batteries-sodium-ion-une-premiere-mondiale-dont-nous-sommes-tres-fiers https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142135/https://www.cnrs.... https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142300/https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/outillage/outillage-electroportatif/visseuse-et-tournevis-electrique/visseuse/tournevis-sans-fil-dexter-sodium-3-6-v-0-7-ah-86650845.html https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142300/https://www.leroy...
fransje26 3y ago
> company saying they were currently able to build cells at 90Wh/Kg in 2017. I found an article from 2021 where they were claiming 90Wh/kg to 120Wh/kg, and that they would not go beyond that. They argue that their strength is fast charging, not high energy density, with charges to full capacity in less than 10 minutes. https://www.ecinews.fr/fr/tiamat-energy-lance-la-production-de-batteries-au-sodium/ https://www.ecinews.fr/fr/tiamat-energy-lance-la-production-...
- speed_spread 3y ago
  In a vehicle, "fast charging" is not just convenience, it means you can use a smaller, _lighter_ battery having less autonomy but knowing that you can refill it in a few minutes stop. It doesn't make range anxiety go away completely but it makes long trips practical.
  - system2 3y ago
    Not necessarily. You must have those fast chargers conveniently placed on your route. I can't even imagine going to Vegas from LA with an electric car currently.
    - RandallBrown 3y ago
      LA to Vegas is about 270 miles, which is under the 333 mile estimated range of a Tesla Model 3. I'm sure under normal conditions, 270 miles would be cutting it pretty close, if it even makes it there at all. Luckily there are 10 supercharges along the way. Not sure how it is for non-teslas, but I'm guessing at least a few of those places with superchargers also have chargers that will work with other kinds of cars.
      - sroussey 3y ago
        There are not so many and the chances of them working are a coin flip. Driving through the desert on an open road is not conducive to efficiency. It’s hot, need AC blasting. It’s an open road—drive fast! (Or it’s bumper to bumper for 10 hours).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
unwind 3y ago
I was banned from the second site (like many other commenters), and got a chuckle from how switching the first from FR to EN did not, in fact, translate the actual content. Silly me for expecting that, I guess.
alentred 3y ago
Interesting. The second web site cites a number of advantages of the sodium-ion battery: > Sodium is 10 times faster to charge than lithium, and safer because of its low operating temperature. The number of recharging cycles is up to 5 times greater than lithium. Another advantage is that sodium is more widely available and accessible on the planet, and its processing has less impact on the environment.
scythe 3y ago
Worth noting that Tiamat's battery is sodium vanadium fluoride phosphate, not sodium ferrocyanide. So, these are not quite the same technology. Vanadium costs a similar amount as nickel and has a higher abundance, but the present-day annual production is much lower. The long-term resource outlook for vanadium is unclear. Sodium ferrocyanide ("Prussian white") was claimed by CATL as well, though they have been supplementing it with lithium in cars for some reason. The cynic in me thinks that the lithium is there to stabilize unfavorable cycling characteristics of the sodium; the optimist hopes it is just because lithium is cheaper at scale right now.

IgorPartola 3y ago

The entire product weighs 0.5 kg, and it is 0.7A at 3.6V. I assume the amp rating is really amp-hours, which would give it 2.52Wh. Figure the battery is half the weight of the tool, which would give it roughly 10Wh/kg.

sylario 3y ago
The spec sheet on the store is confusing. It says : Intensity(Ah) Less than 1.5 Tension (V) 3.6 Amperage (Ah) 0.7 Edit : the box indicate 0.33 Kg, the 0.5 weight probably include the charger and other parts.
masklinn 3y ago
According to https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378775323011175 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03787... the batteries Tiamat produces are 18650 format, 3.7V, 0.61Ah. The latter more or less matches the specs of the product. This would mean the product might have a single 34g battery with a specific energy of 68Wh/kg, and 135Wh/L. So low end of nimh. Which sounds somewhat reasonable, 10 (and around 20Wh/L) I don’t think you’d bother even going forwards with. Sadly I can’t find any teardown of the product, it’s all just press reprints. There’s a split view PDF (in the documents section), it doesn’t seem to show the battery but does not show a huge amount of space for it.
- aredox 3y ago
  I got the same 68 Wh/kg from this report: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2023/10/20231030-tiamat.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2023/10/20231030-tiamat.htm...
- foobarian 3y ago
  Low end of Nimh doesn't sound very great, but - what if you could get 18650 cells for (making up a small number) $0.50 each? I think I would end up with a box full and just swap them as I use them. Even better if they retain charge well.
  - aredox 3y ago
    It has other great advantages over NiMH: fast charging, no memory effect, no self-discharge
    - foobarian 3y ago
      Absolutely! However my baseline are my Li-ion 18650 cells which have those advantages as well, in addition to larger capacity. But I think I would be willing to give up the capacity if the price was much lower.
      - seec 3y ago
        Yeah, considering the tradeoffs it has to be much cheaper to be worthwhile. I would say 5-7 euros per cell retail to be worth considering. Otherwise why bother ?
    - orangepurple 3y ago
      NiMH doesn't have noticable memory effect. NiCd does.
    - tzs 3y ago
      NiMH self-discharge is low enough to not matter for most applications. 5th generation Panasonic Eneloop is 90% after 1 year of storage, 80% after 3 years, 75% after 5 years, and 70% after 10 years.
rich_sasha 3y ago
How much of that weight is the essential weight of the battery, and how much is consumer-friendly outer shell, electronics, other one-offs etc.? I.e. if you wanted to take the same tech, put it in a non-consumer-facing context (say a grid-scale battery) and wanted to make it 100x the capacity, would it be 100x the weight? I can imagine a lot of the weight of the battery unit itself isn't necessarily the battery, if that makes sense.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

hbossy 3y ago

It's the first time a captcha tool flagged me as robot and banned from their site.

tacker2000 3y ago
Same here
- j-a-a-p 3y ago
  00100011 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101111 01101111
  - neonroku 3y ago
    [flagged]
- dylan604 3y ago
  They're French. They don't care about your suffering <puffs on cigarette>
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
TomK32 3y ago
I didn't even get to a captcha
- computerfriend 3y ago
  > There is a robot on the same network [...] as you.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
frafra 3y ago
They are banning entire countries (violating the EU geo-blocking directive as well, probably).

aidog 3y ago

[flagged]

ChumpGPT 3y ago

Banned for using a VPN.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
metadat 3y ago
I got banned and am not even using a VPN! Overly aggressive bot protection.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142135/https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/batteries-sodium-ion-une-premiere-mondiale-dont-nous-sommes-tres-fiers https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142135/https://www.cnrs.... https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142300/https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/outillage/outillage-electroportatif/visseuse-et-tournevis-electrique/visseuse/tournevis-sans-fil-dexter-sodium-3-6-v-0-7-ah-86650845.html https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142300/https://www.leroy...

fransje26 3y ago

> company saying they were currently able to build cells at 90Wh/Kg in 2017. I found an article from 2021 where they were claiming 90Wh/kg to 120Wh/kg, and that they would not go beyond that. They argue that their strength is fast charging, not high energy density, with charges to full capacity in less than 10 minutes. https://www.ecinews.fr/fr/tiamat-energy-lance-la-production-de-batteries-au-sodium/ https://www.ecinews.fr/fr/tiamat-energy-lance-la-production-...

speed_spread 3y ago
In a vehicle, "fast charging" is not just convenience, it means you can use a smaller, _lighter_ battery having less autonomy but knowing that you can refill it in a few minutes stop. It doesn't make range anxiety go away completely but it makes long trips practical.
- system2 3y ago
  Not necessarily. You must have those fast chargers conveniently placed on your route. I can't even imagine going to Vegas from LA with an electric car currently.
  - RandallBrown 3y ago
    LA to Vegas is about 270 miles, which is under the 333 mile estimated range of a Tesla Model 3. I'm sure under normal conditions, 270 miles would be cutting it pretty close, if it even makes it there at all. Luckily there are 10 supercharges along the way. Not sure how it is for non-teslas, but I'm guessing at least a few of those places with superchargers also have chargers that will work with other kinds of cars.
    - sroussey 3y ago
      There are not so many and the chances of them working are a coin flip. Driving through the desert on an open road is not conducive to efficiency. It’s hot, need AC blasting. It’s an open road—drive fast! (Or it’s bumper to bumper for 10 hours).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

unwind 3y ago

I was banned from the second site (like many other commenters), and got a chuckle from how switching the first from FR to EN did not, in fact, translate the actual content. Silly me for expecting that, I guess.

alentred 3y ago

Interesting. The second web site cites a number of advantages of the sodium-ion battery: > Sodium is 10 times faster to charge than lithium, and safer because of its low operating temperature. The number of recharging cycles is up to 5 times greater than lithium. Another advantage is that sodium is more widely available and accessible on the planet, and its processing has less impact on the environment.

scythe 3y ago

Worth noting that Tiamat's battery is sodium vanadium fluoride phosphate, not sodium ferrocyanide. So, these are not quite the same technology. Vanadium costs a similar amount as nickel and has a higher abundance, but the present-day annual production is much lower. The long-term resource outlook for vanadium is unclear. Sodium ferrocyanide ("Prussian white") was claimed by CATL as well, though they have been supplementing it with lithium in cars for some reason. The cynic in me thinks that the lithium is there to stabilize unfavorable cycling characteristics of the sodium; the optimist hopes it is just because lithium is cheaper at scale right now.