Why sodium is an increasingly viable alternative to lithium for certain battery uses
Natron Energy, a US sodium-ion battery company, has just announced it is to build a $1.4 billion plant in North Carolina capable of producing about 24GW of storage per year.
North Carolina’s state government is backing Natron’s investment on the basis it will create more than 1,000 high-quality local jobs and grow the state’s economy by $3.4 billion over the next 12 years.
A number of firms have been developing sodium-ion batteries for some time as an alternative to lithium-based batteries. Sodium is one of the most abundant and easily extractable elements on the planet, making it easy to apply to industrial processes. It has a higher storage capacity than lithium and it withstands a much higher number of charge and discharge cycles (millions of cycles compared to between three thousand and five thousand for lithium batteries).
It’s biggest limitation, however, is its weight: sodium weighs almost three times as much as lithium and can’t store the same amount of energy, meaning that sodium-ion batteries tend to be significantly larger than those based on lithium chemistry. This makes this type of battery less suitable for mobility, and more appropriate for stationary uses such as in factories or homes as back up for renewable electricity. In return, it…
