Very interesting. I've been thinking for the past few years that new battery technology is really what will be the catalyst for the next generation of technology across all industries. I'm curious about their use in smaller consumer electronics, or if lithium will still be the standard for many more years to come.
I hope it's on the way, but I don't think the Pioneer Na is yet a sign of this revolution. This detailed review didn't leave me in a hurry to go get one, anyway:
I skimmed through the article. It talks a lot about sodium ion batteries and how major vehicle and transportation companies are getting into making and using these batteries. It also talks about the cost aspect, with sodium ion being cheaper than lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.
However, there is no mention of this technology in consumer devices and gadgets like laptops, smartphones and tablets. I get that the site is about clean technology as a replacement for the currently more polluting technology. But I’m interested to see when these sodium ion batteries will appear in phones and laptops and what difference they may make to the cost, price, weight, performance, safety, longevity, etc.
Opportunity is for (stationary) appliances, rather than devices.
For instance startup Channing Street Copper's battery powered induction stove. Their battery is large enough to also power your refrigerator for 3 days (IIRC).
In effect, a combination Powerwall and stove. Without requiring a panel upgrade. Apartment dwellers can cost effectively electrify All The Things. It greatly improves resiliency. Unlocks distributed grid power generation and storage (IIRC something like "VPP" for "virtual power plant").
"Induction stoves with batteries built in, and why they matter" [2022]
Where are all the commenters about how China can't innovate and they can only steal technology now...
Reverse that, why don't other countries / companies try and steal their talent and IP? Is everyone resigned to think that China are undefeatable on the technology/manufacturing of these batteries?
It's not really the innovation part. The Chinese actually put research into mass production.
At some point when Americans were still denying climate change the CCP looked at the massive environmental destruction around them and decided to do something about it.
For my EV, which I charge about once a week on average, with 4,000 cycles that means about 77 years!! That's a huge deal. CATL quoted 10k cycle battery too. Wow. Very cool. Yeah energy density and operating profile and all that. But color me impressed.
Are there any better sources we should read for how and why sodium-ion batteries are better than lithium-ion batteries?
All I know is that the charge to mass ratio of an Na+ ion is less than that of an Li+ ion, and that elemental Na and Li are both highly-reactive with violent exothermic reactions when exposed to water. I need someone with chemistry or materials science experience to help me explain what the advantages are and how those advantages exist.
It's really well done and digs into all the details on sodium-ion.
Lots to like with sodium-ion (charge rate for one) but cost isn't going to be competitive for at least 5 and more likely 10 years.
That video seems over pessimistic to me. It has "sodium ion battery cells don't have a good chance of reaching parity with LFP cells until about 2039" but BYD who are making the things are talking about next year.
I could see quite a rapid takeoff if they prove successful next year after being mass produced because they look like maybe the best solution for grid storage.
That the worlds largest battery manufacturers have gone ahead with building gigawatt production plants
is basicly the wake up call. They have done this based on real world deploymemt of electric cars in multiple markets over the last 3 years and of course for the main use as storage and buffering batteries, which will then allow for the full electrification of the transport sector, without putting undue strain on the,(thier) grid.
this has further impact as energy costs will drop significantly, while noise and pollution also decrease dramaticaly,while increasing saftey and reiability.
any country holding back is seriously fucked.
A parallel worth bearing in mind is that LFP batteries became super popular over the last few years and are now 50% of all EV batteries worldwide, but are still rare in the US.
This is partly because the US is a richer market with higher end desires but it might mislead people in that geography into thinking that the battery mass manufacturing world moves slowly.
Meanwhile in the storage market it's gone to 90% LFP as the big deployments take advantage of the cost reductions available.
In fact the biggest impediment to sodium being rolled out was continuing reductions in LFP cost which made people less enhusiastic for alternatives.
It appears they've managed to drive costs down even further, prompting its graduation into mass scale manufacture.
If sodium batteries are so much cheaper, why is the emphasis of this article on batteries for trucks and not grid-scale storage? Isn't the latter much more impactful?
Also naively I would expect sodium batteries to be heavier that lithium, which would make them worse for transportation but still fine for energy storage.
I haven't seen any inverters for grid purposes for the wide Voltage range that Sodium produces. It may be the inverter organisations haven't got their yet and are waiting for the batteries to be available and cheap before it makes sense.
I think a lot of households will choose Sodium just because of how cheap it will be but not until there is the basic inverter equipment to make use of it from the usual manufacturers.
They haven't produced many yet. And when they do they'll probably sell them for applications where they can charge most and make profits. The Pioneer Na(sodium) portable power station thing in the article isn't cheap. The grid storage will come when production ramps up.
I can't stress enough how big a development this is in the process of making renewable energy not just the cheapest form of power, but one of the most reliable, something that will drive decarbonization in general, which will in turn drive world politics.
People are over excited about sodium-ion batteries. They are at least years away from price parity. The super-low numbers floating around are absolute fantasy until production is in the tens of gigawatt hours at least. Their real value is being a hedge on lithium prices. If large battery manufacturer can trivially reconfigure their lines to make sodium-ion batteries, that will be a giant check on large lithium price spikes.
Given the advantages of NaIon batteries over LFPs or NMC, why aren't we already seeing them in EVs (other than some test runs in China)? Is it that companies have already invested too much in the LFP or NMC process?
It would seem switching to NaIon would be an easy decision.
I just heard about this post, so did a quick search and currently it looks like Sriko is the only company providing affordable sodium-ion batteries. They appear to be within about half the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. I used AI (first Google then Bing because it has ChatGPT 5) to create tables comparing battery types:
A($/Wh) D(Wh/kg) D(Wh/L) P($) E(Wh) M(kg) Vol(L) V(V) C S URL(Sodium-ion)
0.46 97.50 235.79 1.81 3.9 0.04 0.017 3.0 3000 18650 https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-18650-3-0v-1-3ah-3-90wh-20c-rechargeable-battery/
0.34 114.29 258.31 3.23 9.6 0.084 0.037 3.0 3000 26700 https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-26700-3-0v-3-2ah-9-60wh-3c-rechargeable-battery/
0.32 134.78 258.89 9.98 31.0 0.23 0.120 3.1 5000 33140 https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-battery-33140-3-1v-10ah-31wh-12c-cylindrical-battery/
0.40 112.50 224.09 21.85 54.0 0.48 0.241 3.0 5000 46145 https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-46145-3-0v-18ah-54wh-10c-rechargeable-battery/
0.20 122.22 231.09 43.70 220.0 1.8 0.952 3.2 5000 pack https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-na-5c-70ah-220wh-battery/
C($/Wh) D(Wh/kg) D(Wh/L) P($) E(Wh) M(kg) Vol(L) V(V) C S URL(Lithium-ion)
0.23 252.00 761.77 2.85 12.6 0.05 0.017 3.6 300 18650 https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/samsung-35e
0.16 262.01 742.41 2.85 18.0 0.069 0.024 3.6 300 21700 https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/samsung-50e
O: outlay
D: density
P: price
E: energy
M: mass
Vol: volume
V: voltage
C: cycles
S: size
Note: 26700 is not the same as 27100, they are just what each site specializes in.
Comment: I think that it should have been 18065 instead of 18650 because then the last 3 digits could be length in mm, same for the others, but what do I know.
Edit: I forgot to add cycles. When considered, they drop the price of sodium-ion to roughly 5-10 times less than lithium-ion for the batteries shown here.
It bugged me that lithium-ion battery listings only state 300-500 charge cycles, so I did a deeper dive with AI and found these batteries for a better comparison:
O($/Wh) D(Wh/kg) D(Wh/L) P($) E(Wh) M(kg) Vol(L) V(V) C S URL(Lithium-ion)
0.31 236.17 671.08 3.4 11.1 0.047 0.017 3.7 1000 18650 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Wholesale-18650-Lithium-Battery-INR18650-3_1601503766893.html
0.36 222.00 671.08 3.99 11.1 0.05 0.017 3.7 800 18650 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Hot-Selling-Factory-Price-INR18650-30Q_1601159662361.html
0.83 160.00 290.20 4 4.8 0.03 0.017 3.2 2000 18650 https://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4-18650-Rechargeable-Cell-3.2V-1500-mAh-4.8Wh-7.5A-Rate.aspx
0.36 227.85 1088.24 6.4 18 0.079 0.017 3.2 3000 18650 https://www.goldencellpower.com/product-item/18650-1100mah-3-2v-lifepo4-cells/
0.36 222.78 1064.06 6.4 17.6 0.079 0.017 3.2 3000 18650 https://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4-18650-Rechargeable-Cell-3.2V-2000-mAh-6.4Wh-6A-Rate.aspx
0.80 134.74 365.71 10.18 12.8 0.095 0.035 3.2 4000 26650 https://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4-26650-Rechargeable-Cell-3.2V-4000-mAh-12.8Wh-12A-Rate.aspx
0.24 184.00 396.07 3.5 14.72 0.08 0.037 3.2 3000 26700 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/lithium-ion-battery-cell-26700-3_1601277009356.html
0.31 240.00 413.29 4.8 15.36 0.064 0.037 3.2 4000 26700 https://www.sunpowernewenergy.com/product/26700-high-rate-lifepo4-battery-45e/
0.31 160.00 128.28 4.8 15.36 0.096 0.120 3.2 4000 33140 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Quality-LMFP-5AH-Cell-Lithium_1601161018743.html
0.28 256.41 167.03 5.6 20 0.078 0.120 3.2 5000 33140 https://www.evlithium.com/LiFePO4-Battery/33140-20ah-lifepo4-battery-cell.html
Edit: dangit, I made a mistake in my previous post. A($/Wh) and C($/Wh) were supposed to be O($/Wh) for outlay. I fixed this one to provide context.
25 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 46.3 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoZ_g_MShTw
However, there is no mention of this technology in consumer devices and gadgets like laptops, smartphones and tablets. I get that the site is about clean technology as a replacement for the currently more polluting technology. But I’m interested to see when these sodium ion batteries will appear in phones and laptops and what difference they may make to the cost, price, weight, performance, safety, longevity, etc.
For instance startup Channing Street Copper's battery powered induction stove. Their battery is large enough to also power your refrigerator for 3 days (IIRC).
In effect, a combination Powerwall and stove. Without requiring a panel upgrade. Apartment dwellers can cost effectively electrify All The Things. It greatly improves resiliency. Unlocks distributed grid power generation and storage (IIRC something like "VPP" for "virtual power plant").
"Induction stoves with batteries built in, and why they matter" [2022]
https://www.volts.wtf/p/induction-stoves-with-batteries-buil...
Reverse that, why don't other countries / companies try and steal their talent and IP? Is everyone resigned to think that China are undefeatable on the technology/manufacturing of these batteries?
At some point when Americans were still denying climate change the CCP looked at the massive environmental destruction around them and decided to do something about it.
All I know is that the charge to mass ratio of an Na+ ion is less than that of an Li+ ion, and that elemental Na and Li are both highly-reactive with violent exothermic reactions when exposed to water. I need someone with chemistry or materials science experience to help me explain what the advantages are and how those advantages exist.
It's really well done and digs into all the details on sodium-ion. Lots to like with sodium-ion (charge rate for one) but cost isn't going to be competitive for at least 5 and more likely 10 years.
I could see quite a rapid takeoff if they prove successful next year after being mass produced because they look like maybe the best solution for grid storage.
This is partly because the US is a richer market with higher end desires but it might mislead people in that geography into thinking that the battery mass manufacturing world moves slowly.
Meanwhile in the storage market it's gone to 90% LFP as the big deployments take advantage of the cost reductions available.
In fact the biggest impediment to sodium being rolled out was continuing reductions in LFP cost which made people less enhusiastic for alternatives.
It appears they've managed to drive costs down even further, prompting its graduation into mass scale manufacture.
Also naively I would expect sodium batteries to be heavier that lithium, which would make them worse for transportation but still fine for energy storage.
I think a lot of households will choose Sodium just because of how cheap it will be but not until there is the basic inverter equipment to make use of it from the usual manufacturers.