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A Staggering 19x Energy Jump in Capacitors May Be the Beginning of the End for Batteries (www.popularmechanics.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I've been seeing a lot about Sodium-ion just in the past week.

While they seem to have a huge advantage in being able to charge and discharge at some fairly eye-watering rates, the miserable energy density would seem to limit them to stationary applications, at least for now.

Perfect for backup power, load shifting, and other power-grid-tied applications though.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

There are already cars with this technology (one of the cheap Chinese ones)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

They've also got much better lifespans, being able to cycle many more times with less capacity loss. As they currently stand, they're much better choices for stationary storage applications. However, I have seen them implemented in power tools and cars for their discharge rates, but it doesn't hurt that they will stay healthy for longer.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I thought one of the main advantages of sodium-ion batteries was price? Great for the applications you listed

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

And environmentally way better than Li-Ion.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I'm doing research on high energy density Na-ion batteries. We'll get there eventually

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I mean, I wouldn't mind a car with "only" 200km range, but that can charge up to full in just 5 minutes. I use my car just for work 99% of the time anyway, the times I need to go somewhere further away I can easily stop midway to charge, get a coffee in the meantime and then be on my way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Unfortunately what's shipping today seems it would offer maybe half that.

For the batteries that were announced this past week, a larger-than-refrigerator-sized cabinet held a capacity of around 15kWh.

Around half the energy density by mass of Lithium batteries, and in the order of a sixth of the density by volume.

Now if only we could come up with a system where your car could be charged while stopped at traffic lights, we might be onto a winner (:

Considering however that the price of sodium is around 1-2% that of lithium, I expect we will see significant R&D and those numbers quickly start to improve.