#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium

Oct 26th 2023

Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.

"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.

"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."

Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithium

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX

#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining

Muir Vidler: Stereo EEG Self-Portrait, 2023

This was taken after a surgical procedure to implant #electrodes into Vidler’s #brain. The procedure is carried out on people who have #epilepsy that can’t be controlled by medication and is used to identify which area of the brain is causing the seizures, and can determine whether they are eligible for brain surgery. Vidler took this picture on the first day that the electrodes were inserted, and he had to keep them in for seven days

@photography

Although everyone looks to #lithium in their #batteries, few pay attention to the #carbon in its #electrodes that make everything work. So he's a bit of #chemistry explaining carbon's importance.

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/77/9/26/3309192/The-black-powder-behind-battery-powerCarbon-black

Someone spilled their morning coffee again 😁☕
----
Adding #caffeine can enhance the efficiency of #FuelCells, reducing the need for #platinum in #electrodes and significantly reducing the cost of making them.

The researchers found that adding caffeine can improve the ORR (oxygen reduction reaction) activity of platinum electrodes 11 fold, making the reaction more efficient.

Caffeine makes fuel cells more efficient, cuts cost of #EnergyStorage
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/caffeine_fuel_cells_paper/