Notebook Check reports optimistically on a vanadium battery breakthrough that stands to make sodium-ion batteries, which rely on cheap minerals, a real competitor for the relatively pricier lithium batteries we use in our phones, laptops, and electric vehicles today:
The base material is 50 times cheaper than lithium, and so abundant it can be distilled from seawater. The more than a decade of research into creating a viable sodium-ion alternative to lithium in batteries is now starting to bear fruit. The first electric cars and grid-level energy storage systems are coming online, and the two biggest battery makers CATL and BYD are increasingly prioritizing their production, despite the precipitous drop in the price of lithium in the past year or so.
The weakest point of sodium-ion batteries – their energy density – is slowly being addressed, too, with more and more lab-level research seeping through into production lines. The latest case in point is the breakthrough discovery of a sodium vanadium phosphate compound (NaxV₂(PO₄)₃) that a group of scientists from the University of Houston and a number of French universities managed to take from the theoretical to the practical realm.
The vanadium phosphate material increases the theoretical energy density from the current 396 Wh/kg average to 458 Wh/kg, closing in on lithium-ion batteries. What’s more, the use of vanadium allows the cells to remain stable during rapid charging and discharge, while delivering a higher, 3.7 V voltage than the typical cells used now.