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posted by martyb on Friday July 30 2021, @09:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-a-bit-salty dept.

China's CATL unveils sodium-ion battery - a first for a major car battery maker:

China's CATL (300750.SZ) on Thursday became the first major automotive battery maker to unveil a sodium-ion battery, saying it planned to set up a supply chain for the new technology in 2023.

As electric vehicles become increasingly popular, demand for key battery ingredients, particularly cobalt, has spiked. That has spurred car and battery makers to seek alternatives to the current three main technologies - nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA), nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.

The sodium-ion batteries do not contain lithium, cobalt or nickel. It did not disclose cost details of the new batteries.

CATL, China's top car battery maker with a market value of almost $200 billion, also unveiled a battery pack that integrates sodium-ion and lithium-ion batteries.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @11:51AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @11:51AM (#1161345)

    So far, the problem with sodium-ion batteries was the fact that they couldn't be made mobile, they had to be fixed, stationnary and level (something to do with a liquid electrolyte or something). I wonder how they solved that problem.

    One advantage of sodium-ion tech is that the batteries can be totally discharged, down to 0%, without damaging them. In this state, they are completely harmless and can be shipped like normal cargo without being considered hazardous material.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @01:42PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @01:42PM (#1161360)

    Can't accuse the Chinese of stealing this tech, it is new. Maybe America needs to value researchers as much as sport stars and actors.

    CATL, which competes with Japan's Panasonic Corp (6752.T) and South Korea's LG Chem, has over 5,000 researchers

    • (Score: 2, Troll) by HammeredGlass on Friday July 30 2021, @02:40PM

      by HammeredGlass (12241) on Friday July 30 2021, @02:40PM (#1161373)

      Which means it's more Chinese vaporware.

    • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @07:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @07:55PM (#1161474)

      First you have to kick out the Jews who purposely push that shit in all media to destroy the white race and white countries. This didn't used to be white culture.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Fnord666 on Friday July 30 2021, @01:49PM (3 children)

    by Fnord666 (652) on Friday July 30 2021, @01:49PM (#1161361) Homepage

    The sodium-ion batteries do not contain lithium, cobalt or nickel. It did not disclose cost details of the new batteries.

    As I recall from chemistry (but it has been a while so....) sodium is still pretty reactive and especially so when it comes in contact with water. Will fire stations have a database of which vehicles use what technology so they know how to put out any vehicle fires? Will those rural, volunteer fire departments that get by on local fundraisers have the necessary foam/gel/whatever to safely deal with these vehicles?

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @03:44PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @03:44PM (#1161385)

      You're quite correct in your thinking here. I'll just say that lithium-ion batteries are bad too. The impact to the environment after a crash is often overlooked by the pro-electric vehicle zealots.

      For those following along at home, in your favorite search engine of choice, type in "lithium ion batteries car fires" and pick your article to read. For those that like video demos, check out YouTube as there's plenty on there too. Putting out a lithium-ion battery fire can take massive amounts of water and time to fully put out since they have a tenancy to ignite and reignite. Not only that, there is a further environmental impact when hosing down a fire because the water washes all the "battery ingredients" into the storm water systems or into the environment's overall water table - the water has to go somewhere.

      Firefighters and first-responders also have to deal with the risk of electric shock potential too (though the potential of electric shock is inherent to all electric vehicles).

      As electric vehicle ownership continues to grow and crashes happen, people will start to catch on that their environmental unicorns aren't so pure.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday July 30 2021, @06:38PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 30 2021, @06:38PM (#1161440) Journal

        The impact to the environment after a crash is often overlooked by the pro-electric vehicle zealots.

        Just as the impact to the environment before a crash is often overlooked by the pro-ICE vehicle zealots.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 30 2021, @07:46PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday July 30 2021, @07:46PM (#1161467) Journal

        Meanwhile, car fires don't show up in search engines because they're so common they don't make the news.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @02:04PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @02:04PM (#1161364)
    Could somebody please add a link to the related Wikipedia article Sodium-ion battery ?
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by dak664 on Friday July 30 2021, @03:21PM

      by dak664 (2433) on Friday July 30 2021, @03:21PM (#1161383)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery [wikipedia.org]

      Similar to Lithium ion in most respects; the hard part was finding a substitute for graphite which will not allow sodium ion intercalalate. Says this first generation achieves 160 Wh/kg. Other groups are working with different anode materials.

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