GoKawiilToday, most rechargeable batteries are made from lithium ions, but sodium-ion alternatives could make battery tech much cheaper and offer other advantages
CATL’s sodium-ion battery on display at a trade show VCG/VCG via Getty Images
On 5 February, a black sedan was speeding down an icy track in northern China at 95 kilometres per hour when its tyre burst, releasing a puff of white into the -32°C air. The car coasted to a stop without spinning into the snow. This was meant to demonstrate that even the harshest conditions were no barrier to the auto-maker Changan’s new line of electric vehicles, which includes the first mass-produced EV with a sodium-ion battery.
Changan’s Nevo AO6 model is expected to hit the market later this year with a new, more powerful generation of sodium-ion batteries made by energy storage giant CATL.
While most rechargeable batteries are made from lithium, a critical mineral, this kind of battery is made from salt, a much more abundant – and therefore cheaper – material. If sodium-ion batteries can perform almost as well at a lower price, they could challenge lithium’s dominance. And that could pave the way for other kinds of batteries, so that someday each type of device might have its own preferred battery chemistry.
“This is just the start of the battery revolution, in which we are going to see a plethora of new batteries coming to the market and targeting special segments,” says Maria Crespo-Ribadeneyra at Queen Mary University of London. “Sodium is the pioneer that can prove that a world beyond lithium is possible.”
While a predecessor of the sodium-ion battery was created by the firm Ford in 1966, companies only began to seriously develop the technology in the past 15 years, as electrification of the power grid and automobiles hiked demand for lithium-ion batteries. It works the same way, but sodium, rather than lithium, is dissolved in the electrolyte, and the electrodes are different compounds.
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But because sodium is three times heavier than lithium, sodium-ion batteries with the same storage capacity weigh more. Their potential was long seen as limited to electricity grid storage, since the extra bulk doesn’t matter at a large facility, or to mini EVs with a small battery range.
A handful of sodium-ion grid storage plants have been built in China, Germany and the US. General Motors, the largest US auto-maker, just partnered with the start-up Peak Energy to build more. Peak Energy is also selling sodium-ion batteries to data centres, which can use them to store electricity at times of day when it is cheap. The company Eleven Energy has also started installing sodium-ion home batteries in the UK.
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