This seems like a pretty big deal, right?
Yup. Studies on sodium batteries has been going on for years. If they finally achieve good enough state this is big since lithium is limited and expensive while sodium is everywhere. However sodium batteries will never be effective as lithium batteries because of the atom size. Lithium is much smaller than sodium.
True, but this is solid state so it may be higher density than current Lithium based batteries. But it might not beat a hypothetical lithium solid state battery. On the other hand, sodium batteries today beat out lithium in many other ways than capacity, and if those things are true for solid state then as long as there is a big enough jump in capacity due to the solid state transition then I think sodium is going to be the go-to for most uses in the future.
Indeed, the fact that they filed a patent is also an indicator that this is not purely an experiment, but a tangible way forward. Let’s hope this can scale up quickly.
Calling BS
No batteries are ever anode free so you are right to call bullshit on this title …
Yet, what they meant was that, at the time of fabrication, there is no sodium at the anode side and only while charging the battery, sodium is deposited so creating the anode.
Also BS because this is such a common BS article “Amazing breakthrough in batteries will change everything and is 100 times better!”
Always BS
I’ve been reading about various breakthroughs in battery world for past decade or so. So far none ended up in a consumer product.
You can go and buy sodium batteries already. They’re not competitive with Lithium ion batteries in many mobile applications, but very much competitive for everything where price is more important than size or weight.
Lithium has decades of research and industrial scaling behind it, it’s hard to break into that. But especially sodium is on a pretty good path to replace it in large scale storage applications.
Sodium-ion batteries have been in development since 1970s and the lithium-ion batteries have been in development since 1960s. Not much of a difference.
It’s not just the amount of time. The portable electronics market and the electric car market both settled on lithium batteries, which created a huge demand for that particular technology. Over the past 2 decades there has been a massive incentive to develop smaller, denser lithium batteries.
There may be interest in developing other battery technologies, but nothing like the amount of money and effort being spent on lithium batteries.
QuantumScape is currently building the mass production line for a solid state battery and has been sending prototypes out to their auto manufacturer clients for testing.
This Undecided with Matt Ferrell video has a good breakdown.
Disclosure: I own 100 shares of QS
It takes around a decade to scale up a process. You’d be shocked at how long it takes to discover something, get investment, file patents, acquire licenses, construct facilities, manufacture the product, and sell to customers. And that’s what it takes to get to just the starting line of being in business.
I’ve been reading about battery breakthroughs for decades. And I remember when the latest in battery tech was alkaline, then Ni-Cd, then Li-Ion, and now LiPo. All of those have ended up in consumer products.
You skipped Ni-MH there, that was major for not having the memory problems of Ni-Cd. We still use those in AA and AAA rechargeable batteries.
Ni-MH production for EVs was effectively shutdown by Texaco and later Chevron through patent acquisitions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries
A little pedantic note, LiPo is still a type of Li-Ion (maybe I got that right)
and the bigger recent breakthrough was LFP (Lithium iron phosphate / LiFePO4)
And probably safe to call Sodium-Ion and solid state the next big phases of development
Also, the battery pack for a cell phone 30 years ago was about the same volume and weight of an entire smartphone, with a capacity of about 500 mAh. They are also far cheaper if you account for inflation.
Batteries have improved incapacity by about a factor of 10 and the cost per watt-hour has reduced by about 99% in the last 30 year. All without a single advancement in the technology, apparently.
/s
All without a single advancement in the technology, apparently.
What do you mean by that?
I would say there have been a great many advancements in technology. I mean, that’s what all these improvements are, right?
Wait… did they do all three?
“Global action requires working together to access critically important materials,” Meng said.
So… nope.
Huh ?
What information are you trying to convey by quoting that sentence from the article?
I know colonizer-speak when I see it.
I know everyone wants to point out that she may be referring to the brutal colonialist exploitation that lithium ion battery technology rests upon - but the way the quote is placed and framed tells me instead that we are not being told everything about this “techno-miracle.”