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Since debuting in the 1990s, lithium batteries have been the go-to solution for “green” applications such as electric vehicles (EVs), mobile phones, and laptops. Featuring high-energy density and efficiency, as well as the ability to store a vast amount of energy in a tiny and lightweight package, they’ve become virtually indispensable—until now.
As EV consumption grows, it's essential to look at everything involved with battery utilization—from mining, resource use, environmental issues, and even geopolitical realities. For example, EV production emits more than seven tons of CO2e emissions from just the battery. According to a McKinsey report, “In the Race to Decarbonize Electric Vehicle Batteries,” large lithium-ion EV batteries are the biggest source of embedded emissions for electric cars and trucks, totaling 40 to 60 percent of total production emissions.[1]
While lithium remains an available resource, obtaining it presents an environmental challenge. Popular Mechanics crunched the numbers and asserted that there is sufficient lithium to produce approximately 11 billion EVs with the tons of lithium we know about.[2] So, while the Earth can supply all the lithium we need, “Getting it out of the Earth, on the other hand, is a whole different story.” Enabling the infrastructure capable of pulling lithium and other materials from the ground and processing it will be challenging. From the environmental impact of mining finite resources, including lithium, cobalt, and nickel, to the complex recycling necessary for cathodes, anodes, binders, current collectors, and a huge volume of battery waste, lithium's “greenness” appears to be in question.
According to Euronews, South America's 'lithium fields' highlight the dark side of our electric future. It takes approximately 2.2 million liters of water to produce one ton of lithium in Chile’s Atacama salt flats.[3] Lithium mining takes precious water resources from local communities, while evaporation ponds used for lithium production consume 21 million liters of water daily. Lithium’s dependency on water is a key area where sodium-ion becomes potentially a more suitable option, as the BBC reports that it takes 682 times more water to extract one ton of lithium than one ton of sodium.[4]
Beyond these environmental challenges, there are geopolitical risks and global manufacturing capacity issues surrounding lithium in places such as China.[5]
The development of sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) still lags behind their lithium-ion predecessor. However, interest in sodium batteries is on the rise. Sodium is 1,000 times more abundant than lithium, and sodium-ion batteries feature high power, fast charging, and low-temperature operation.
There are many other reasons why sodium-ion batteries are coming to the fore, including:
However, sodium still has drawbacks. Although sodium-ion batteries consume fewer resources, they typically have a lower energy density than lithium-ion batteries and they produce more greenhouse gasses during production than lithium-ion batteries of the same energy.
In Q2 of 2024, Natron Energy announced it achieved the first commercial-scale production of sodium-ion batteries in the US at its manufacturing facility in Holland, Michigan. Natron claims higher power density, higher cycles, a domestic US supply chain, and unique safety characteristics, while being the only UL-listed sodium-ion batteries on the market.[6]
Achieving sodium-ion battery production on this scale took a sizable investment by Natron to upgrade their US$300 million facility and transform existing lithium-ion battery manufacturing lines to sodium-ion battery production. Additionally, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) provided another US$19.8 million through the Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy Technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) program. The facility began battery shipments, with an initial focus on addressing the growing energy storage needs of data centers as AI expands and becomes more ubiquitous.
Natron's efforts are also addressing some of the environmental and safety issues faced by lithium-ion, as their supply chain eliminates lithium, cobalt, nickel, or other difficult-to-obtain minerals. Instead, commodity materials include aluminum, iron, manganese, and sodium electrolytes, meaning the batteries are non-flammable.
Natron Energy took its technology a step further, announcing it will build a US$1.4 billion giga-scale sodium-ion battery manufacturing facility in North Carolina. The company expects production of 24GW of Natron's SIBs annually, scaling up the company's current production capacity by 40 times. A North Carolina Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) will create more than 1,000 high-quality local jobs to grow the state's economy by US$3.4 billion over the next 12 years. Natron claims its patented Prussian blue electrodes store and transfer sodium ions faster and with lower internal resistance than any other commercial battery today.
Sodium-based batteries are undeniably gaining traction. By 2022, the sodium-ion batteries' energy density was approximately where low-end lithium-ion batteries were just ten years before.
Recently, battery companies and vehicle manufacturers in China announced new sodium-ion batteries that may lower the cost for stationary storage and electric vehicles. JAC Motors, for example, published photos of what it claims is the world's first vehicle built with sodium-ion batteries from HiNa Battery, with a range of up to 245 kilometers (155 miles).[7] China's largest EV battery maker, CATL, followed suit a month later, announcing plans to release a sodium-ion battery.[8] Unlike Natron, the companies have not released the batteries' production timelines or performance metrics.
Although lithium-ion batteries are not going away anytime soon, headway is being made with sodium-ion technology regarding lifetimes, electrolyte advances, and improved electrode materials. The realities of lithium mines and processing facilities increase calls for alternatives to address the needs of an industry scrambling to keep up with demand.
Sources
[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/the-race-to-decarbonize-electric-vehicle-batteries [2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/lithium-supply-batteries-electric-vehicles/ [3] https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-lithium-fields-reveal-the-dark-side-of-our-electric-future [4] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240319-the-most-sustainable-alternatives-to-lithium-batteries [5] https://orcasia.org/article/602/chinas-monopoly-over-lithiums-upstream-and-downstream-supply-chain [6] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240428240613/en/Natron-Energy-Achieves-First-Ever-Commercial-Scale-Production-of-Sodium-Ion-Batteries-in-the-U.S [7] https://jacmotors.co.za/jac-motors-unveils-worlds-first-sodium-ion-battery-vehicle/ [8] https://www.catl.com/en/news/6013.html.
Carolyn Mathas is a freelance writer/site editor for United Business Media’s EDN and EE Times, IHS 360, and AspenCore, as well as individual companies. Mathas was Director of Marketing for Securealink and Micrium, Inc., and provided public relations, marketing and writing services to Philips, Altera, Boulder Creek Engineering and Lucent Technologies. She holds an MBA from New York Institute of Technology and a BS in Marketing from University of Phoenix.