Extra salty sodium battery performs on par with lithium

It keeps saying &quot;some lithium-ion batteries&quot;.<p>&gt;a comparable energy capacity and cycling ability to some lithium-ion batteries<p>Is that just covering their asses, or does this only perform as well as the worst-performing lithium-ion batteries?

TIP: The shortage of lithium is nowhere near as &quot;catastrophic&quot; as stockmarket people believe.<p>The shortage of cobalt is a by far bigger problem. It&#x27;s basically 80% about Congo, and what happens there.<p>50% to 80% of global supply can evaporate overnight if something is happening there.

It&#x27;s nice to see this progress - it&#x27;s definitely been a focus for people for a long time.<p>I remember one of my chemistry profs in the 1990s telling us how Sodium ion batteries could eclipse Lithium ion batteries once we figure out the practicality to make it work.

Gotta be dead-heavy? Sodium is atomic weight 22, while Lithum is 7. Three times as heavy? Or is the electrolyte too small a fraction to matter much.

Recent context on sodium batteries: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.chemistryworld.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;a-battery-technology-worth-its-salt&#x2F;3010966.article" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.chemistryworld.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;a-battery-technology...</a>

Sort of off-topic, but why is sodium more abundant than lithium?

During the dotcom era someone tried to build Flow batteries (although I don&#x27;t think the term had been coined yet), and if memory serves they were sodium chemistry.<p>There&#x27;s a hint on the wikipedia page that someone may be trying it again, but I&#x27;m having trouble following the citations to figure out who.

&gt;&quot;One of the problems with them in their current form, however [...] inactive sodium crystals tend to build up on the surface of the negatively-charged electrode [...] which winds up killing the battery.&quot;<p>[...]<p>&quot;Experimenting with the design of sodium-ion batteries led the team to produce a version with a cathode made of<p><i>layered metal oxide</i><p>and a liquid electrolyte with a higher concentration of sodium ions.<p>In testing, the team found that this led to a much smoother interaction between the electrolyte and the cathode, enabling the continuous movement of the sodium ions and<p><i>avoiding the troublesome buildup of inactive crystals on the cathode surface.</i><p>The upshot of that was battery offering capacity similar to some lithium-ion batteries and with an uninterrupted generation of electricity, maintaining 80 percent of its charge after 1,000 cycles.&quot;

how is this possible with Li having a higher electronegativity than Na?

Controlling Surface Phase Transition and Chemical Reactivity of O3-Layered Metal Oxide Cathodes for High-Performance Na-Ion Batteries<p>Junhua Song, Kuan Wang, Jianming Zheng<i>, Mark H. Engelhard, Biwei Xiao, Enyuan Hu, Zihua Zhu, Chongmin Wang, Manling Sui, Yuehe Lin</i>, David Reed, Vincent L. Sprenkle, Pengfei Yan<i>, and Xiaolin Li</i><p>ACS Energy Lett. 2020, 5, XXX, 1718–1725 Publication Date:April 28, 2020<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1021&#x2F;acsenergylett.0c00700" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1021&#x2F;acsenergylett.0c00700</a><p>&quot;Abstract:<p>O3-layered metal oxides are promising cathode materials for high-energy Na-ion batteries (SIBs); however, they suffer from fast capacity fade.<p>Here, we develop a high-performance O3-NaNi0.68Mn0.22Co0.10O2 cathode for SIBs toward practical applications by suppressing the formation of a rock salt layer at the cathode surface with an advanced electrolyte.<p>The cathode can deliver a high specific capacity of ∼196 mAh g–1 and demonstrates &gt;80% capacity retention over 1000 cycles. NaNi0.68Mn0.22Co0.10O2–hard carbon full-cells with practical loading (&gt;2.5 mAh cm–2) and lean electrolyte (∼40 μL) demonstrate ∼82% capacity retention after 450 cycles.<p>A 60 mAh single-layer pouch cell has also been fabricated and demonstrated stable performance. This work represents a significant leap in SIB development and brings new insights to the development of advanced layered metal oxide cathodes for alkaline-ion batteries.&quot;

Someone tell me how this amazing discovery won&#x27;t work in practice.

One of the problems with them in their current form, however, is that while this is going on inactive sodium crystals tend to build up on the surface of the negatively-charged electrode, the cathode, which winds up killing the battery. Additionally, sodium-ion batteries don&#x27;t hold as much energy as their lithium-ion counterparts.