In case anyone is wondering what Prussian White is:
“Prussian white (PW) also referred to as Berlin White (BW) or Everett’s Salt (ES), is the totally reduced and sodiated form of the pigment known as Prussian Blue. The basic building blocks of Prussian White are sodium, iron, carbon, and nitrogen. It is the hexacyanoferrate based sodium rich iron analogue (Na2Fe[Fe(CN)6]) used as a positive electrode material in sodium-ion batteries.”
Prussian Blue
Bob Ross approves!
I’d be curious how upfront capital to set up LiFePO4 plant compares to the new sodium-ion offerings.
Sodium-ion definitely has some very appealing advantages over LiFePO4 from a transport/logistics (having the cells get moved around at 0 V is huge in terms of mitigating the liability headache of existing chemistries) and fixed installation perspective (know someone that’s already considering supplementing their solar storage LTO bank with sodium cells) but I’m struggling somewhat to see the advantages it offer for BEVs and if manufacturers will find it worth mass producing over other conflict mineral free chemistries.
It’ll be interesting to see of BYD details lifecycle cost for the different chemistries given they seem to be dumping capital into testing every proposed chemistry under the sun.
Questions:
- A 160 Wh/kg energy density is fine but what’s the power density like?
- What’s the operating temperature?
- What’s cycle life like?
- What kind of C rating can we expect?
- What’s the safety like?
- Being made with abundant materials is good but what’s the production process like? How clean is it?
- Lithium-ion batteries are pretty cheap now and they’re still on a downward cost curve. How do these compare?
Inquiring minds want datasheets!
Northvolt develops state-of-the-art sodium-ion battery validated at 160 Wh/kg
what does this mean exactly, what is the approx energy density of NMC and LFP batteries? wihtou providing more comparative details, a layman would understand jack shit here
LFP is about 190 Wh/kg, NMC is about 260 Wh/kg.
So it is actually pretty good. Sodium ion is not future tech, it is current tech as of 2023 you can purchase then in small quantities. There is a MIT student testing one on Reddit batteries. The density was about 110. So the 160 Wh/kg is very good.
They didn’t say anything about it, but the volume is about double. So even if they are good enough for cars it is not easy to retrofit.
Don’t forget that one of the issues with batteries is supply chain ( we need more materials than what is being produced). Probably all these batteries will co exist to avoid material shortages. Sodium ion may become the standard for the auxiliary 12/48V systems and for low range EV ( probably not in the huge USA ) and for PEV. One key is the anode that uses hard carbon where lithium ion uses a more refined form classified as graphite and graphite shortage could be an issue short term.
They are probably not cheaper than lithium ion right now due to limited scale but are predicted to be half the cost of current lithium ion. Lithium ion will also fall. There is tech like LFMP coming to further reduce lithium ion cost.
A mass produced Natrium battery will be a game changer. Materials used are abundant. We need this for grid / home storage, so leveling out the use of distributed electricity by storing elecriticy used by wind / water / sun. And also… most cars / automotive devices don’t need a huge range neither.
Any timeline on production? If it’s just lab result, I’m not impressed, as a lot of companies can achieve that in small quantity lab samples already.
Excellent.
The rEVolution rolls on! 👍