After several months, I have watched your video again, thank you very much for sharing and spreading your knowledge about batteries Dr. Wu, with your graphic explanation you can now see more clearly the operation of the batteries and the comparison of one with the other, where the great advantage of sodium batteries versus lithium batteries is seen in all aspects for their production. In this regard, I have an idea of starting a small battery factory, since in my country we have all the raw materials necessary for its production: Na, Al, Mg, Cu, Li, Fe, anthracite carbon and graphite, available, all that remains is to build the production plant. We also have an entrepreneur who has developed a kind of ecological battery from plant pots, from where it generates energy to illuminate lamps, his name is Alinti Perú, which you may like just out of curiosity and the way it generates energy to illuminate. happiness and success. I will be waiting for your interesting and instructive videos.
Glad to hear its useful. Sodium-ion batteries do have great potential for enabling energy independence since the elements are relatively abundant and globally distributed. The challenge is that any battery manufacturing process is quite complex and capital intensive with challenging margins, but it is needed nonetheless.
Great video. Thank you for the information. I'm glad you made the point about SI batteries not displacing LI batteries but rather adding options. Too often we get this weird narrative that new developments must/will/threaten to end existing tech, which is not helpful for discussion.
Thanks and glad to hear the information was interesting. Yeah, there are so many different applications coming which will require batteries that I'm sure there will be a diversity of chemistries which will be used
Thanks Mr. Wu, very helpful... So, could a conventional Li-ion battery giga-factory convert over to sodium-ion 1) at a reasonable capital cost, 2) without closing the plant down for more than a few weeks 3) with very minimal technical risk. In other words, will sodium-ion replace Li-ion batteries in exciting vehicles or only in brand new vehicle models? Thanks! If only in new models, then Li demand will remain strong....
Thanks and great question. In theory, yes, the approach for making sodium-ion batteries is almost the same as lithium-ion batteries. Of course there are some nuances to this which still need to be demonstrated (e.g. moisture sensitivity) which means that there are still some technical risks, but in general I think this is feasible. In my mind, I think sodium-ion provides an alternative to lithium-ion. There are a few EVs in China proposing sodium-ion and it'll be interesting to see what real-world challenges come up.
I've come across APB in the past. They have an interesting approach with some context here (books.rsc.org/books/edited-volume/799/chapter/539101/Creation-of-a-New-Design-Concept-for-All-polymer). In terms of video, I don't have anything specific on this yet
Thanks for the video. Is there any research on solid-state sodium batteries? Is the ion size/transport a blocker compared to solid-state lithium batteries?
Thanks. Yeah, there is also work being done on the development of solid-state sodium batteries. Though not in the limelight yet, it has significant potential also
@@BillyWu Wondering if this combination of (potentially) lower cost and energy density will make it more attractive for stationary applications. Electric grids are totally starved of peak energy shaving due to renewable penetration.
Thanks a lot for this video Professor Wu. I've learnt a lot from you today. I'm wondering why there's no much talk about potassium ion batteries. I thought the much larger ionic radii of potassium compared to sodium and lithium should be compensated by it's reduction potential that's similar to that of lithium. Potassium is also more abundant than lithium. What about possible magnesium ion batteries?
Thanks and great question. There are many different types of battery technologies out there which all work. The challenge is whether they've reached practical levels of performance in a combination of energy density, power density, cost, lifetime and other parameters in a single cell. For sure some of the fundamental problems with potassium-ion can be solved, however much of this often comes from government funding in fundamental science but often there is a focus on a specific area such that there is sufficient resources to get that area of maturity, rather than spreading too thin.
Sodium-ion batteries broadly work in the same way as lithium-ion however the voltage limits may well be different depending on the chemistry and also the exact state-of-charge estimation technique may also differ from tradition LIB BMSs.
Thanks for the interesting information. I would be interested to know what effect the much larger voltage swing of NIB cells has compared to LFP cells, if it is large, it has no advantage for storage applications, if NIB cells can only be partially discharged due to the large and therefore difficult to use voltage swing, this reduces the capacity even further compared to lithium cells.
Great question. The exact voltage range will depend on the specific NIB chemistry used, just like in LIBs we have NMC which has a higher voltage range than LFP cells. One potential challenge to note related to your question in that hard carbon has a slightly higher voltage than graphite which means that to extract all the full capacity, the lower voltage cut-off tends to be lower. So, if there is a system which has issues operating at lower voltages then you're right there might be some inaccessible capacity. I'm sure, as we see more of these systems being commericalised, more of the engineering challenges will emerge
@@BillyWu Here is an example: A small, cheap EV gets a NIB, the EV is to be charged at the normal fast charging stations, which IMHO have max. 500 V the EV should have a power of 100 kW What does a battery look like? It will have a maximum of 125 cells in series at 3.95V. If this battery is run down to 1.8V it will still have 225V and would have to deliver 444A for 100kW. So the hardware has to be designed for this current, if the battery is even capable of delivering it.
@@oliverwunsch4412 Older reported performance from Faradion (faradion.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Faradion-Limited-4th-International-Meeting-on-Sodium-Batteries.pdf) shows an operating voltage range of about 4.2-1.0 V for a cell with an energy density of 140 Wh/kg. You likely wouldn't run down to these low voltages so lose some accessible capacity, or have a very low power operating mode
@@oliverwunsch4412Perhaps, the battery management systems (BMS) sodium batteries could include voltage boosting electronics as the battery is discharged towards the lower end of the voltage curve. In that way, the energy density can remain close that of LiFePO4. This should have little ill effect on the battery as sodium ion batteries can be discharged to zero volts (or so I learnt).
Thanks! Scale-up is happening already in places like China so we'll likely see these deployed soon, but this will take a bit of time to fully scale since the factories and supply chain takes time to develop and significant capital investments
Thanks. Appreciate it. I've watched your sodium-ion video also :) Very clear and great to add the engineering considerations which are key for practical considerations. Will be interesting to see the nuances of the technology as we see more deployment
I skipped right to the cost segment. What a shame. The price floor set by materials costs appears too damn high. Sodium ion batteries are not going to bring about the extremely cheap storage that we need for multi-day wind energy storage - as wind energy appears to have a lot of day-long periods of little energy production.
The true cost of a battery is quite nuanced, but the core message is that whilst sodium is cheaper than lithium, the amount of salt in the battery is relatively small. Thus, the main cost is determined by the electrode materials. For the high performance NIBs which use transition metals similar to LIBs the cost advantage won't be as significant, but there are emerging chemistries which can be cheaper than the examples shown, but seasonal storage will always be a challenge for electrochemical batteries.
Excellent presentation....very well done. An in-depth investigation of many different materials having potential use for sodium batteries. Did not expect to find this on a RU-vid video...thank you!👍
Isn't comparing today's state of the art NIB to today's state of the art LIB flawed? We need to compare the cost/capabilities of NIBs in 4-5 years (when potentially scaled up) vs. the cost/capabilities of LIBs in 4-5 years, no? If so, how will NIB's ever catch up? There's 1,000x more research going into improving LIBs than into commercializing NIBs, no? Also, will the costs of key elements used in NIBs rise if NIBs become widely used, thus lowering the potential cost advantage? Honestly, I thought that NIBs were going to be 50%-60% cheaper than LIBs, not just 20%-30%. That would justify all the hard work and risk of switching paradigms. I think NIBs will not have anywhere near the success that LFP did at the expense of NCM & NCA...LFP is now like 40% of the total EV batter market? Thanks again.
A fair point and all battery technologies are constantly evolving. At around the 06:41 point (slide 8) I tried to put down the potential future NIB performance but you're right that LIB performance will also increase so a balanced argument should also include this. I think interest in NIBs will increase this year as there is significant potential offered from decoupling from some of the critical minerials from an energy security perspective. I believe there are already mentions of lithium cartels forming. On potential cost increase of NIB materials of course this could happen, though many of the materials used (depending on configurations) are somewhat more abundant and used widely in other applications (iron, sodium, manganese), so hopefully the risk is less. If NIBs are now at LFP levels of energy density, there are interesting discussions to be be around the balance of these two since LFP can be somewhat lithium intense on a per kWh basis.
Thanks Dr. Wu appreciate your video. , however, troubled at the almost religion application of battery technology that has been appropriated in my absence.. Seems no one is willing to invest in the roots of development,, due to the immediate needs of smarter applications needed now.
