Performance and advantages of sodium-ion batteries

Performance and advantages of sodium-ion batteries 

As a new type of energy storage technology, sodium-ion batteries have received widespread attention from academia and industry in recent years. Relevant scientists have achieved remarkable results in the research of sodium-ion batteries, especially in the proposal and experimental verification of layered oxide configuration prediction methods, which provide theoretical guidance for the design and preparation of low-cost, high-performance layered oxide positive electrode materials for sodium-ion batteries. In addition, sodium-ion batteries are regarded as a powerful supplement to lithium-ion batteries due to their advantages such as abundant resources and low cost, and they play an important role in the new round of energy transformation.

Sodium-ion batteries are a secondary battery (rechargeable battery) that mainly relies on the movement of sodium ions between the positive and negative electrodes to work, similar to the working principle of lithium-ion batteries. The electrode material of sodium-ion batteries is mainly sodium salt, which has more abundant reserves and lower prices than lithium salt.

Advantages of sodium-ion batteries
The main advantages of sodium-ion batteries over lithium-ion batteries are as follows:
Lower cost: The raw material cost of sodium-ion batteries is lower because sodium is a cheap metal, while lithium is more expensive than sodium. Therefore, the manufacturing cost of sodium-ion batteries is relatively low.
Longer cycle life: Sodium-ion batteries have a longer cycle life than lithium-ion batteries because sodium ions have a larger ionic radius and diffuse more slowly in materials than lithium ions, resulting in less fatigue damage to electrode materials.
Relatively good safety: First, sodium-ion batteries have a higher autoignition temperature, which means they are less likely to have safety accidents in the case of overcharge or short circuit. Second, sodium-ion batteries also perform well under extreme conditions, such as in the extrusion puncture test, where sodium-ion batteries have good safety performance. In addition, sodium-ion batteries have strong thermal stability and can maintain stable performance even in high-temperature environments. Although sodium-ion batteries have shown good safety performance in some aspects, a series of measures still need to be taken to ensure their safety in practical applications. For example, the design and process of the battery can be optimized to ensure the safety of the battery during use.
Environmentally friendly: Sodium-ion batteries use more abundant resources, so they have more advantages than lithium batteries in terms of environmental protection. At the same time, since most of the chemical components used in sodium batteries are non-toxic and renewable, the waste generated is less polluting to the environment.
Good high and low temperature performance: Sodium-ion batteries perform relatively well in high and low temperature environments. In high temperature environments, the operating temperature of sodium-ion batteries can reach over 250°C. In low temperature environments, sodium-ion batteries can work normally between -40°C and 80°C, and have good wide temperature characteristics. In particular, at -20°C, the capacity retention rate of sodium-ion batteries is as high as 90%, while lithium iron phosphate batteries and lead-acid batteries can only reach 70% and 48% respectively. These characteristics make sodium-ion batteries have good stability and reliability under extreme climatic conditions, which is very important for equipment that needs to work in various temperature environments.