cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/16261249
Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
So what’s the deal, are they better, stronger, faster? Or take a hit for the cost/environment?
Potentially cheaper and uses more abundant materials than lithium ion, but not as energy dense, so not ready yet for automotive purposes. They have a much higher cycle life and faster charge/discharge rates, though, so good potential for applications that don’t need to move like data center power backups.
My first goto would be a cellphone battery. Having a cellphone battery lasting months longer than what I had to deal with on my old phone. I welcome this.
Its not as energy dense, overall battery life will be worse. The battery won’t degrade as fast overtime, so the battery will keep more total capacity over the years, as compared to a lithium ion battery that would have noticeably less battery after a few years of use.
There’s not enough known lithium deposits in the world to make the batteries needed to decarbonize transportation and provide the energy storage needed for a fully renewable grid. That is not true of sodium, which is cheap and abundant.
At the current energy density, they’re more suitable for stationary storage. But we need a lot of that, so that’s a win. Sodium is cheap and abundant, so those cells should be a lot cheaper to produce.
if we’re all driving around in a short bus theres plenty of room for this density of battery.
So how to make them at home? :)
