Sodium-ion batteries 'set to challenge' dominant lithium-ion technology

A British start-up has developed a battery technology which, it claims, could lead to batteries for domestic energy use with properties comparable to Tesla’s recently-unveiled ‘Powerwall’ but at around a third of the cost. Faradion’s batteries, which could also be used in vehicles, also have considerable safety advantages over conventional lithium-ion technologies, the company claims.

They key to the technology is that rather than using lithion-ion cells, Faradion’s batteries are based on sodium-ion chemistry; it has released results showing results from a sodium-nickel-zinc-tin compound with a layered structure. Sodium and lithium occupy the same group on the Periodic Table — alkaline earth or Group I metals, and therefore have very similar chemistries. However, as sodium is many times more abundant on Earth than lithium, mostly because of its presence in seawater, sodium ion cells are cheaper than lithium ion — sodium salts are some 90 per cent cheaper than those of the lighter metal — and also more sustainable, explained Faradion chief technical officer Jerry Barker. ‘This means that the total cost of the battery would be around 30-35 per cent cheaper than a comparable lithium-ion battery,’ he claimed.