Researchers at Washington State University(WSU) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory(PNNL) have developed Wholesale motorcycle battery a Sodium ion battery that is as much efficient as Lithium ion battery.Hence ,it creates a potentially viable battery technology out of cheap and abundant materials. The research was led by Yuehe Lin, professor in WSU's school of Mechanical and Materials Engineering ,Xiaolin Li , senior research scientist at PNNL and Junhua Song ,a WSU PhD graduate. Research finding of team-Sodium ion battery is able to provide capacity similar to some Li-ion batteries and to recharge successfully , retaining more than 80 percent of its charge after 1,000 cycles.
Advantage of Na-ion battery over Li-ion batteryLi-ion batteries are made from materials such as Lithium and Cobalt which are rare and expensive.In future demand for electricity storage and electric vehicles can rise so it will harder to get raw materials for Li-ion batteries and cost of Li-ion may also rise.Sodium ion batteries will be manufactured by using Sodium which is cheap and abundant.Sodium could be good choice for large scale energy storageChallenges in development of Sodium ion battery-1.Sodium -ion have problem being recharged as would be required for effective energy storage.Layer of inactive Sodium crystals builds up at the cathode , hence stopping the flow of Sodium ions and consequently, exhausting the battery.2.Battery should have high energy density and good cycle life. How researchers overcame above difficulty?The research team overcame above difficulty by creating a layered metal oxide cathode and liquid electrolyte that included extra Sodium ions, thereby preventing inactive surface crystal build-up and allowing for unrestricted electricity generation.
Now, researchers are working to better understand the important exchange between their electrolyte and cathode, so that researchers can work with other materials for better design of battery. They also want to develop a battery that does not use Cobalt ,another rare and relatively expensive material. “This work paves the way toward practical sodium-ion batteries, and the fundamental insights we gained about the cathode-electrolyte interaction shed light on how we might develop future cobalt-free or low cobalt cathode materials in sodium-ion batteries as well as in other types of battery chemistries,” Song said.
