Purdue Uni resolves serious sodium-ion battery issues

[HEXUS]

Sodium is much cheaper and more earth abundant than Lithium.

Read more.

[ilh]

Huzzah, yet another promising battery breakthrough we won't see for another 15 years, if ever.

[chj]

Another one for the list.

[Tabbykatze]

Another one to disappear into the ether with suspicious circumstances like paper batteries and similar

[tygrus]

Seems very experimental with no idea of retail product.
Rhetorical questions:
Wh/kg? Wh/cm^3? Charge efficiency? Useful charges for # life? Capacity after 1000 charges? Retail or manufacture cost $/Wh? Operating and storage temperature range? What happens if battery is broken or spiked with metal? How much trouble to recycle?

The inventors don't say and nobody knows? Till then, I don't care.

[peterb]

Seems very experimental with no idea of retail product.
Rhetorical questions:
Wh/kg? Wh/cm^3? Charge efficiency? Useful charges for # life? Capacity after 1000 charges? Retail or manufacture cost $/Wh? Operating and storage temperature range? What happens if battery is broken or spiked with metal? How much trouble to recycle?

The inventors don't say and nobody knows? Till then, I don't care.

The energy density is determined largely by the chemistry, and a quick search using the search engine of your choice will show that it is similar to lithium-iron phosphate.

The advantages include the plentiful supply of sodium and the fact that it can be discharged to less that 30% capacity without damage.

The disadvantages are problems over the number of charge cycle, caused by problems with the chemistry at the ion exchange at the cathode - a problem that this research claims to have overcome.

While I can’t answer your rhtorical questions accurately, while sodium as an alkali metal is reactive, it is less reactive than lithium, and So the dangers of a sodium cell being punctured would be no worse than that of a lithium cell.

So this may be a significant breakthrough on the path to a new generation of secondary cell, which may use already established manufacturing techniques for cells using alkali metals.