this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
863 points (99.2% liked)
Technology
59674 readers
4464 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If you poke a hole in it, is it just as exciting as lithium?
A different kind of excitement without flames.
Sodium cells have been out of the lab for at least 8 months now.
They're still a bit pricey but the price is quickly falling
These are more fun then lipos... I wounder if u pack a tesla full of these..will it manage to achive escape velocity after a crash? I mean gas cars and lithium batteries right now just turn car into lots fo smoke and flames..but these might really change how we see crashes...
Edit: I feel like I need to add an /s somewhere...the amout of serious replies to this comment are concerning 🤦
That explosion doesent seem much bigger than a firework thats smaller than the battery’s size. With as much as a car weighs and the amount we already do to protect batteries in electric cars i imagine the explosion from these could be easier to manage safely than a lithium fire. I also wonder how harmful the fumes are compared to lithium
Especially considering there's no fire from a sodium cell, just a quick bang. They definitely seem a lot safer.
We already know how to take care of this in big capacitors. You put a breakaway vent in.
Yep, cylindrical Li-ion cells like the 18650 already do this.
Yep, less/no fire is very important when creating battery banks with many cells. The probability of single cell failure spreading to adjacent cells is reduced, making a catastrophic failure of the entire bank less likely.
My hopes of flying cars has been dashed 😐
LiPo batteries of the same capacity actually have the potential to be much more dangerous than the sodium cell shown here.
LiPo packs typically use flat, soft walled cells which are far more susceptible to being punctured. In the event of a puncture or overcharge event, high temperature enduring flames are produced, with the severity and duration largely depending on the amount of energy within the cell. LiPo batteries also degrade at a much faster rate (both over time and with charge cycles) and have been known to spontaneously combust in storage while at rest.
With the sodium battery, the thrust produced by the puncture could have been easily been overcome by properly securing the cell.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
A different kind of excitement without flames
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It is if it's a dry electrolyte cell.