#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

Fast-charging #SodiumIon battery uses anodes made from trees

By C.C. Weiss
June 09, 2024

"A month after #NatronEnergy began its first-of-kind sodium-ion battery mass production, Swedish sodium-ion developer #Altris has identified a means of making the LithiumFree batteries even more sustainable. Together with partner #StoraEnso, it's adapting tree pulp-sourced carbon toward use as an anode material.

"A byproduct of wood pulp manufacturing, #lignin has long been investigated for possible use as a more sustainable electrode material. Finnish renewable materials company Stora Enso made headlines in 2022 when it partnered up with Swedish battery manufacturer #Northvolt toward using its proprietary #Lignode material in lithium-ion battery anodes. Stora Enso describes Lignode as a hard carbon material refined from lignin.

"By teaming with Altris, Stora Enso looks to go even more sustainable while further localizing the European battery supply chain. As we looked at when Natron Energy kicked off production a few weeks ago, sodium-ion batteries eliminate the need for rare minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel, relying on abundant sodium that can be sourced locally without harmful #mining. "

Read more:
https://newatlas.com/energy/wood-based-sodium-ion-battery/

#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIonBatteries #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse

Sustainability-inspired cell design for a fully #recyclable #SodiumIon battery

Tiefeng Liu, Yaping Zhang, Chao Chen, Zhan Lin, Shanqing Zhang , Jun Lu

Nature Communications, 2019 Apr 29

"Effective #recycling technologies represent a solution to the #sustainability and environmental consequences of spent #RechargeableBatteries . Here, the authors show a bipolar electrode design that allows not only good electrochemical performance but a closed loop of material use for sodium ion batteries."

Read more:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6488666/

#SolarPunkSunday #Reuse #SodiumIonBatteries #NewTechnology
#GiantLeap #EWaste #EWasteRecycling #EWasteReuse

New method converts old phones and paper industry #waste into #GreenBattery tech

Scientists have created a sustainable, cost-effective, and highly efficient solution that promotes a #CircularEconomy while supporting the transition to greener #EnergyStorage.

By
Mrigakshi Dixit
Feb 20, 2026 06:59 AM EST

"A new sustainable method turns discarded #MobilePhoneBatteries and industrial lignin into a powerhouse material for #SodiumIon batteries.

"It is a stunning example of circular economy innovation. Rather than letting these materials sit in #landfills or go up in smoke, the team from China is giving the waste a high-tech second life.

"When tested as a sodium-ion battery anode, this composite of #nickel-#cobalt sulfides and #lignin-derived carbon delivered electrochemical results."

Read more:
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/battery-material-from-old-phone-batteries

#SolarPunkSunday #CellPhoneBatteries #Reuse #SodiumIonBatteries #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #EWaste #EWasteRecycling #EWasteReuse

#GoldExtraction from #EWaste gets 10 times more efficient with new sponge material

Researchers developed a nanoscale cross-dimensional composite material via self-assembly of two-dimensional graphene oxide and one-dimensional chitosan macromolecules.

By Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Oct 27, 2024

"Researchers have developed a new type of material that’s 10 times more efficient at extracting gold from e-waste than previous adsorbents. Developed by chemists and materials scientists at the National University of Singapore, the material is a type of sponge made of #GrapheneOxide and #chitosan [shrimp shells].

"The material can reportedly transform the way gold is extracted from electronic wastes, which has been described so far as a dirty business with low yields and results in toxic #pollutants.

"The cheaper, cleaner and efficient method was tested by researchers using real e-waste provided by a recycling company."

[...]

"While the present work focused on gold, the team say the technique could be adapted to recover other valuable metals such as #silver, #platinum or #palladium from #ElectronicWaste or even #mining residues. And that is not all: as well as e-waste, the technology might be applied to a wider range of environmental cleaning efforts, such as filtering out #HeavyMetals from #PollutedWater sources or industrial effluents, reported Physics World."

Read more:
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/gold-extraction-from-e-waste-sponge


Article in Physics World - Eco-friendly graphene composite recovers gold from e-waste

24 Oct 2024

https://physicsworld.com/a/eco-friendly-graphene-composite-recovers-gold-from-e-waste/

#SolarPunkSunday #NoGoldMining
#EWasteRecycling #MetalsExtraction #Electronics #RareEarthMinerals #Recycling #NewTechnology #ShrimpShells

MacBook Neo

https://www.apple.com/macbook-neo/

#HackerNews #MacBookNeo #Apple #NewTechnology #LaptopInnovation

Neue Verfahren für den Leichtbau: TU Freiberg macht Magnesium industriefähig und klimafreundlich

#Newtechnology #GoodNews
idw-online.de/de/news866133
Es ist leichter als Aluminium. Trotzdem wurde Magnesium bislang von der Industrie kaum genutzt, da seine Verarbeitung zu Bauteilen als komplex und energieintensiv gilt. Nach drei Jahren Forschungsarbeit entwickelte und erprobte ein Team verschiedener Fachbereiche der TU Bergakademie Freiberg gemeinsam mit Industriepartnern eine durchgängige Prozesskette für Magnesium-Leichtbauteile

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