Lithium has actually dropped in price by 80% over the last two years, so this part of the article is (currently) wrong:<p>“ The lithium commonly used for batteries isn’t that common. It makes up about 20 parts per million of the Earth’s crust, compared to sodium, which makes up 20,000 parts per million.<p>This scarcity, combined with the surge in demand for the lithium-ion batteries for laptops, phones and EVs, have sent prices skyrocketing, putting the needed batteries further out of reach.”<p>Source: <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium" rel="nofollow">https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium</a><p><a href="https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2024/02/lithium-prices-in-free-fall-implications-for-clean-energy-transition-in-the-private-sector" rel="nofollow">https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2024/02/lithiu...</a>
I don't know much about electricity but surely an anode is necessary for electrons to flow?<p>Sayeth Wikipedia, "Instead, it creates a metal anode the first time it is charged."<p>Ok. I'm still not entirely clear on it but it makes some kinda sense.
Na4MnCr(PO4)3<p>Chromium is 5 times more abundant than Lithium in earth crust (0.01% vs 0.002%). Better, but not that much ?<p>"Regular" sodium-ion batteries with prussian blue has, it seems, the great advantage of not using any scarce elements.
It would be nice to have a comparison between this solid state chemistry and the regular one.
Preprint of paper here: <a href="https://chemrxiv.org/engage/api-gateway/chemrxiv/assets/orp/resource/item/6557e156dbd7c8b54b7aefa5/original/an-anode-free-sodium-all-solid-state-battery.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://chemrxiv.org/engage/api-gateway/chemrxiv/assets/orp/...</a>
<p><pre><code> Lithium extraction is also environmentally damaging, whether from the … brine extraction that pumps massive amounts of water to the surface to dry.
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That’s a bit of a stretch. Pumping water to the surface of a dry lakebed far from most life and letting it evaporate is pretty low on the environmental impact scale from mining. I wonder how that compares to sodium extraction.
pretty cool...but when it comes to batteries what matters is scale and total cost. it doesnt matter if the elements are cheaper, are you introducing a product that is significantly better or cheaper that the current status quo (see the rise of LFP)?<p>can you use existing factories and manufacturing techniques or do you need to invent or build those. we've started hearing about solid state batteries about 15 years ago and we still dont have any at a big enough scale. if solid state batteries do takeoff it will probably takeoff first in electric aviation and supercars which can hide the cost due to a more expensive products and the need for higher density
One will hope this becomes commercially successful and the dirty process of creating and building lithium batteries goes away completely. Hope we become less dependent on China and other countries with shady labor practices (ie, child labor, minimal to no safety regulations).
Good the abundance of sodium and its stable state is going to give us a huge potential for power storage. I have so many potentially spicy pillows in my house I'll be glad to have it swapped for sodium any day.
Great, yet another new battery revelation that will never come to market. Why is this? Why do we constantly hear of these amazing, technical advances, but yet we never see any of it come to market?<p>- Lithium-Sulfur Batteries<p>- Solid-State Batteries<p>- Sodium-Ion Batteries<p>- Aluminum-Ion Batteries<p>- Silicon Anode Batteries<p>- Magnesium-Ion Batteries<p>- Lithium-Air Batteries<p>- Zinc-Air Batteries<p>- Flow Batteries<p>- Graphene-Based Batteries