Sodium batteries can power your new electric car

Sodium is a common element that is usually extracted from soda ash, but can be found essentially anywhere, including in seawater and in peat bogs. It also happens to be suitable for the types of applications described by Meng. The ions are slightly heavier and larger than the lithium ones, which means you can’t put so much energy into a small space, like in the belly of a car. “It’s on a network where sodium batteries can have a big impact,” explained Nuria Tapia-Ruiz, a professor at Lancaster University and director of the sodium batteries initiative at the Faraday Institution. These piles can be a little bigger, a little heavier, but it doesn’t matter because they have to be tight.

Historically, Tapia-Ruiz says, sodium cells have been retained in part because of their chemical stability. Although sodium and lithium are periodic neighbors, they exist in parallel universes of chemistry that react differently with different elements and compounds. This means that switching to sodium requires the development of new materials for the cathode and anodine of the battery, both positive and negative electrodes that trap and release ions as the battery is charged and then spent. A special problem is that chemical reactions inside the battery can eat up the electrolyte between the electrodes, reducing the battery life or the risk of creating a sodium metal that can be explosive. Another challenge is that high-density energy batteries typically contain nickel, like many lithium batteries. Removing this metal is a key concern for researchers, albeit a difficult one. “But it’s the right thing to do, because you want to create a technology that’s sustainable and very green,” says Tapia-Ruiz.

But a few labs and startups that still work with sodium have made quiet progress in recent decades. Natron, a California-based startup, builds sodium batteries primarily for industrial power in industrial facilities and data centers. The company uses a material called Prussian blue as the base for its electrodes, including a variation of early synthetic pigments used in iconic paints. Under the big wave of Kanagawa. Inside a battery, the design isn’t particularly energy intensive, even by sodium standards. But one advantage, according to Jack Pouchet, the company’s vice president of sales, is that “Our supply chain can be local.” It has common elements such as sodium, manganese and iron, and the factory is located in Santa Clara, California. Due to the lack of energy storage, the battery can quickly charge and distribute this energy. Above the Oomph range. The company hopes its batteries can be used to quickly charge electric cars when the power grid is tightened. Natron is making plans to install such devices in San Diego, Pouchet says.

The other argument of the company is security. Pouchet mentions incidents during network battery storage operations, including a major fire at a battery facility Australia and overheating in another facility California, which raises concerns about the appropriateness of placing batteries in everyone’s home, even though these fires are rare. “I wouldn’t want to have that in my garage,” he says. The company’s website shows videos of crushing and heating battery packs and shooting with a gun without any apparent problems.

But overall, the safety of sodium batteries is “not perfect,” Menge says, and it depends on the exact design of the battery. It’s all about matching the right cathodes and electrolytes, and it’s more difficult to eliminate fire hazards in the case of higher-density batteries, either for those found in cars or designed to distribute energy for longer periods of time, such as network storage batteries.