{"id":3732,"date":"2018-06-27T11:22:49","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T16:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/?p=3732"},"modified":"2018-02-26T11:23:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T16:23:38","slug":"cheaper-alternative-batteries-sodium-ion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/cheaper-alternative-batteries-sodium-ion\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cheaper Alternative for Batteries\u2014Sodium Ion"},"content":{"rendered":"

A vast majority of electronic equipment running on batteries rely on the Lithium-ion technology for their electrode material. Since Lithium is relatively rare, its mining and refining make it an expensive material to use. This has led scientists to search for a cheaper alternative, and they have turned to the cheapest substance available, the common salt. A team from Stanford has developed a battery based on Sodium-ion whose cost per storage capacity is far lower than that of the existing batteries based on Lithium-ion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Salt, being nearly omni-present in our oceans, together with its ability to carry charge, is a near-perfect candidate for low-cost energy storage. Many forms of Sodium-based batteries are now available, some with a unique design of anode made from a carbonized oak leaf to a more standard format for use in laptops. According to the lead researcher of the Stanford study, Zhenan Bao, although Lithium offers a superior performance, its rarity and high cost is leading people to search for materials such as Sodium to build low-cost but high performance batteries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The research team uses a battery with Sodium salt cathode and a Phosphorous anode\u2014materials that are abundant in nature. Near the cathode, Sodium ions combine with oppositely charged myo-inositol ions. To improve the charge-recharge cycle, the researchers had to study the forces at work at atomic-level, when Sodium ions detach and attach from the cathode.<\/span><\/p>\n

The newly developed Sodium-ion battery has a reversible capacity of 484 mAh\/gm, which translates to an energy density of 726 Wh\/Kg. The research team claims the energy efficiency of the new batteries to be greater than 87%. Regarding the cost comparison between similar storage capacity batteries, the team says the new Sodium-ion battery will cost less than 80% of the cost of a Lithium-ion battery of similar storage capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n

To obtain more performance from the Sodium-ion battery, the research team is planning to work more on its phosphorous anode. In addition, to be able to dictate the size of the Sodium-ion battery necessary to store a certain amount of energy, the team also plans to examine the volumetric energy density in comparison to that of Lithium-ion batteries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faradion Limited, of Sheffield, UK, has developed Sodium-ion technology that offers energy densities in batteries far exceeding those of other known Sodium-ion technologies. In addition, their new technology produces energy densities that exceed those from popular Lithium-ion materials such as Lithium iron phosphate. Faradion makes current collectors in their Sodium-ion batteries from Aluminum rather than from the more expensive copper that Lithium cells use.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to electrochemical tests Faradion has conducted, they list the advantages of the Sodium-ion materials over conventional Lithium-ion materials as follows\u2014better rate capability, better thermal stability (safer), improved transport safety, improved cycle life, and similar shelf life. Further, Sodium-ion material processing is similar to that followed for Lithium-ion materials at every step, beginning from synthesis of the active materials to the processing of electrodes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Innovate UK co-funds a project for Williams Advanced Engineering, where the novel Sodium-ion technology from Faradion is currently being employed to build 3 Ah prismatic cells. Williams is further incorporating these cells into batteries for commercial use.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A vast majority of electronic equipment running on batteries rely on the Lithium-ion technology for their electrode material. Since Lithium is relatively rare, its mining and refining make it an expensive material to use. This has led scientists to search for a cheaper alternative, and they have turned to the cheapest substance available, the common […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,15],"tags":[281,1939],"class_list":["post-3732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-batteries","category-guides","tag-batteries","tag-sodium-ion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3733,"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732\/revisions\/3733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westfloridacomponents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}