What Is A Sodium Battery?

Sodium batteries, also known as sodium ion batteries, are a type of rechargeable battery.

It relies on sodium ions moving between the positive and negative electrodes, having same working principle of lithium-ion batteries.

The sodium ion batteries mainly use sodium salts, which have richer reserves and lower prices compared to lithium salts.

Due to the fact that sodium ions are larger than lithium ions, sodium ion batteries are a cost-effective alternative when weight and energy density requirements are not high.

Advantages Of Sodium Batteries

Compared to lithium-ion batteries, sodium ion batteries have the following advantages.

1.Sodium salt raw materials have abundant reserves and low prices.

Compared with ternary cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, using iron manganese nickel based cathode materials reduces raw material costs by half.

2.Due to the characteristics of sodium salts, it uses low concentration electrolytes (with the same concentration electrolyte, sodium salt conductivity is about 20% higher than lithium electrolyte) to reduce costs.

3.Sodium ions do not form alloys with aluminum, the negative electrode uses aluminum foil as the current collector, which can further reduce costs by about 8%, and weight by about 10%.

4.Due to the non-discharge characteristics , sodium ion batteries can discharge to zero volts.

Sodium ion batteries have an energy density greater than 100Wh/kg, which is comparable to lithium iron phosphate batteries.

However, their cost advantage is significant and they can replace traditional lead-acid batteries in large-scale energy storage.

Sodium Battery Dilemma

However, being an emerging technology, sodium ion batteries are expensive, because the supply chain is small and not mature enough.

Sodium ion batteries have the advantages of low cost, high and low temperature performance and fast charging ability.

The main disadvantage is the low energy density and there is a significant gap compared to existing lithium batteries.

Experts believe that there is no major breakthrough in sodium ion batteries, but they can be used in low-speed vehicles or other special application scenarios.

Over time, people have improved the energy density of sodium batteries through their efforts, filling the gaps in sodium batteries.

The advantages of sodium batteries will shine brightly and become the best alternative to lithium batteries.