How Sodium-Ion Batteries May Challenge Lithium

The future is electric. Everything from cars to consumer electronics to renewable energy storage depends on our ability to make more and better

batteries

. Today,

lithium

-ion

batteries

dominate those markets, but demand for the critical minerals needed to make

lithium

-ion batteries is expected to outstrip supply. This, combined with cost considerations and energy security concerns, is leading companies and countries to consider alternative battery chemistries. Faced with

challenge

s related to, for example, the supply of lithium, nickel and cobalt, some OEMs have turned to

sodium

ion. Sodium ion batteries are similar in design to lithium ion batteries, meaning they can both be manufactured using similar methods.

Both generate electricity through a chemical reaction and are composed of an anode, a cathode, a separator and an electrolyte. But in a

sodium

ion battery, lithium ions are replaced with sodium ions at the battery cathode and lithium salts are replaced with sodium salts in the electrolyte. Like lithium, sodium, which is part of salt, must be chemically processed before becoming the raw material used in the cathode and electrolyte. Sodium is right next to lithium on the periodic table, meaning the two are chemically very similar, but sodium is much more abundant. It's also cheaper. Although still in its infancy, the sodium-ion battery market is expected to be worth more than $11 billion by 2033.

While sodium-ion batteries cannot compete with lithium-ion batteries in In terms of autonomy in electric vehicles, they do present some difficulties. unique advantages. Does not use expensive raw materials. There is no cobalt, there is no copper, there is no lithium, there is no graphite, which is actually controlled primarily by China today. What we're actually going to see is a production Natron battery cell that has been fully charged. And in fact, we're going to drill it with a hole saw. And what we're going to find is that it's just going to stay there. You know, there's no safety hazard.

There is no fire. Chinese battery giant CATL recently announced that it would supply automaker Chery with sodium-ion batteries for its electric vehicles. Other battery companies such as SVOLT and French startup Tiamat are developing similar technologies. CNBC spoke with two companies, California-based Natron Energy and UK-based Faradian, about their plans to commercialize sodium-ion batteries and the technology's place in the evolving battery market. Sodium-ion batteries have been around since around the 1970s and '80s, but large-scale development of the technology was abandoned in favor of lithium-ion batteries. But now, the technology is getting a second look. Excitement around sodium-ion batteries was reignited after the world's largest electric vehicle battery maker, CATL, revealed it was investing in the technology in 2021, with plans to establish a core industrial supply chain for 2023.

Like lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion battery cathodes can be made of different materials, which companies are experimenting with to give their batteries specific properties. But in general, the materials used to make sodium-ion batteries tend to be cheaper than the materials used in lithium-ion batteries. In this cell, about 80% of the cell cost is materials. And if we compare it with the BOM of lithium, by volume, we see that the BOM of sodium ion is between 24 and 32% cheaper than that of lithium ion. In addition to eliminating lithium, sodium-ion batteries do not require the use of other critical materials such as cobalt, which has been associated with human rights abuses.

Plus, sodium can be found anywhere. It is enormously abundant. Not only is it widely available in terms of current sources of sodium in sea salt, but it is also contained in the Earth's crust around the world. Lithium, most of it is basically found in three countries, Australia, China and Chile, and is being developed to be a handful of more countries, but still very concentrated. About 70 percent of current cobalt production is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And again, the vast majority of that is being perfected in China. Obviously, these are key bottlenecks in terms of the supply chain.

Another attraction of sodium-ion batteries is that they have a longer cycle life, meaning the battery can be charged and discharged more times than lithium-ion batteries and can operate over a wider range of temperatures. With sodium ion batteries we have a very wide operating temperature range. So down to -30 and up to plus 60. We have also demonstrated the ability to go up to plus 80 degrees C. And that again is due to the intrinsic elements of the electrolyte and the materials that we can use. Battery fires have also been an issue affecting lithium-ion technology, but experts say sodium-ion batteries will be much safer.

For lithium-ion, it is always necessary to have between 30 and 40% charge in a battery. That's why when you get on a plane and they ask you to remove your batteries, if you're going to check a suitcase it's for those reasons because they can become unstable and catch fire. And the sodium ion is unique in that we can send them at zero volts. Basically, it's like shipping a bag of electrolyte, not an active battery. For all its advantages, the Achilles heel of sodium ion technology has been its energy density, which is the amount of electrical energy a battery can store relative to its mass.

What this means is that to maintain the same electrical charge, sodium batteries must be larger and heavier than their lithium counterparts, which can be a problem for electric vehicles, where space is limited. Today, sodium ion batteries have a similar energy density to lithium iron phosphate batteries. Lithium-ion chemistries containing nickel, manganese, and cobalt have the highest energy densities. These energy densities translate into autonomy in electric vehicles. Despite its narrow scope, experts say sodium ion technology has a promising future and companies are rushing to ramp up production. One such company is Faradian, which was founded in the United Kingdom in 2011.

In 2022, the startup was acquired by Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries for $135 million. The captive demand for Reliance ownership is huge. They have the largest oil refinery in the world and are moving towards renewable energy. They have one of the largest telecom companies in the world with Jio and one of the largest retail businesses in the world. Then there are all these power requirements. There are delivery vehicles and telecommunications applications. The cathode of Farradion battery cells is a chemical known as sodium lamellar oxide and contains sodium, nickel, manganese, magnesium, titanium and oxygen. The anode is made of hard carbon, which comes from coconut shells or other biomass materials.

Quinn says Faradian is initially focusing on producing batteries for the stationary energy storage market. This can include things like providing backup power to telecommunications companies or storing excess power generated by renewable resources such as wind and solar, either at grid scale or in individual homes. Next, Farradion plans to expand into the low-speed electric vehicle market. Think electric bikes, scooters and rickshaws. Heavy machinery, such as forklifts, also compete for Farradion batteries. Farradion installed its first sodium-ion battery for energy storage in Australia in 2022. The company says its batteries are already competitive with lithium iron phosphate technology. In our production size cells it is currently 160 watt hours per kilo.

And we have development activities that are taking us to more than 190, 200 watt hours per kilo. As it continues to improve the energy density of its batteries, Farradion sees a future in which it will enter the electric vehicle market, starting with commercial vehicles like buses and trucks that have more space to accommodate larger batteries. Electric vehicles are a more crowded space. It is a much more challenging market. It requires much more capital and there are longer design cycles. On the other hand, because there's so much interest in our technology, it's certainly important to be on their roadmap and collaborate with some of those companies because you want to be able to have a seat at the table.

The

challenge

for Farradion now is to increase production. The company is building an R&D facility in the UK to further develop its technology, as well as working to expand production with factories in India. We're building pilot facilities to get to the hundreds of tons range, both from the material side and the cell manufacturing side, and then in parallel we're also building the gigafactories to be able to go up to the gigawatt hour scale. anus. Natron Energy is another company trying to commercialize sodium-ion battery technology. Founded in 2012, in Santa Clara, California, as a subsidiary of Stanford University, Natron focuses on manufacturing sodium-ion batteries using a sodium-rich material based on the Prussian blue pigment.

Prussian blue is a consumer product. It is a pigment. You'll find it in paint, jeans, and all kinds of things. It turns out that it is also great for storing energy in the form of sodium ions. In general, it is a relatively simple compound to formulate. Any chemical plant with quality control and process control to produce high purity material can produce Prussian blue. For its battery cells, Natron uses an iron-rich sodium material for the cathode and a manganese-rich sodium material for the anode. The anode and cathode electrodes are placed on aluminum foil, similar to what you would have in your kitchen.

The packaging is made of this laminated material, which is plastic-coated aluminum foil. Between the two electrodes, we would have some type of separator and that separator is effectively a plastic wrap with a little bit of silica. So glass dust embedded in the plastic. And that's really it. Natron has outsourced the production of its electrode material to specialty chemicals manufacturer Arxada in Switzerland. The company continues its R&D efforts and operates a pilot-scale production line that it says can produce between 100 and 200 battery systems per month. One of the advantages of sodium ion technology is that it can use the same manufacturing facilities as lithium-ion batteries.

Natron is taking advantage of this and has partnered with Clarios to use part of the lithium-ion battery maker's Michigan plant to begin large-scale manufacturing of its sodium-ion batteries in the fall of 2023. The beauty of that specific plant is its medium volume species. You know, it gives us the opportunity to demonstrate that we can manufacture these sodium-ion batteries on lithium-ion lines before we go out and build a global-scale plant. But sometime in 2024, next year, this plant will operate at a rate of between 3.5 and 4 million battery cells per year. Initially, the company is not focused on the electric vehicle market.

Instead, Natron is targeting the data center market, where it says its batteries can provide backup power in the event of an outage. Fast charging stations for electric vehicles are another possible future market. Natron is already testing this application with investor Chevron. Imagine walking into this station. There are plenty of chargers and all the cars plug in at the same time. And now the energy load on the electrical grid is enormous. It can be very difficult for the network to support all those vehicle loads simultaneously. And so many station operators are adopting a model where they would place large stationary batteries at the station to provide those pulses of power to charge the vehicles.

United Airlines has also invested in Natron and plans to use the company's batteries to electrify its ground operations. Wessells says Natron has raised about $175 million since its inception from various investors, including ABB and Khosla Ventures, among others. Natron and Faradian are just two of several companies trying to commercialize sodium-ion battery technology. That's because several automakers have already announced plans to incorporate sodium-ion batteries into their electric vehicles. As with lithium-ion technology, China is leading the adoption of sodium-ion batteries. Of the 20 battery factories insodium currently planned or under construction worldwide, 16 are in China. Due to the dominance China has in the current lithium-ion supply chain, there is a risk that it will now extend to the sodium-ion supply chain, depending on where sodium-ion cell production capacity is developed. .

And at the moment, it looks like China is going to dominate that too. Most experts believe that sodium-ion batteries have the potential to act in tandem with lithium-ion technology, alleviating some of its supply limitations rather than replacing it entirely. Ten years from now, I believe sodium ions will have a very strong position in industrial energy and grid energy storage. For electric vehicles, there will be certain market segments where sodium ions will fit perfectly. It is not yet known whether or not this will include conventional passenger vehicles. We can see a future where there could be a lower cost sodium ion option and that could be a lower trim line on a car.

And it may not have the same autonomy, but it would be less expensive. I think where we see lithium iron phosphate, we will see sodium ions gain market share. I mean, lithium ions have a couple of decades advantage over sodium ions. So we will certainly gain market share on that in the foreseeable future. As with any new technology, success often comes with scale, which sodium-ion battery companies have yet to develop. Keeping up with the scale of battery market growth will likely be one of the biggest challenges for sodium ion to achieve major market penetration. Still, sodium-ion battery makers remain optimistic about the future of the technology.

This is a once-in-a-generation transition from fossil fuels to green energy globally, and sodium ions will continue to play an important role in it.