Batteries have entered the human world for 200 years, as one of the most widely used energy storage devices, it has an irreplaceable position in modern life. Especially after the 1990s, lithium batteries began to be widely used, this small size, sufficient battery, not only promoted the development of portable electronic products, but also brought about a dynamic change in the automotive industry around 2014. In recent years, with the development of new energy industries such as wind power and photovoltaics, the demand for energy storage has also grown rapidly, and the use of lithium batteries for energy storage has also become a good choice.
From the end of 2020 to the beginning of 2022, in just over a year, the price of lithium has risen tenfold, resulting in the price of lithium batteries becoming more and more expensive, causing a greater impact on related industries. Mainland scientists are developing a new type of battery, this battery is more readily available sodium as the main material, what are the advantages of this new type of battery, and what kind of relationship does it have with our lives?
What is a sodium-ion battery
Sodium element in chemistry and lithium elements homogeneous, belongs to the alkali metal, this group of elements are active in nature, easy to lose electrons during reaction, is an ideal material for manufacturing batteries. Sodium ion batteries are batteries that use sodium ions as the charge carrier. When the battery is charged, the positively charged sodium ions, starting from the positive electrode, enter the electrolytic cell, pass through the diaphragm to reach the negative electrode, and are stored there. It is possible to complete charging or discharging by relying on sodium ions to move between the positive and negative electrodes.
Sodium-ion batteries that are both cheap and safe
Compared with lithium batteries, the advantages of sodium-ion batteries are cheap and safe.
Although lithium-ion batteries have the advantages of high energy density, the frequent spontaneous combustion accidents still have a considerable impact on their promotion and development. The reason why lithium-ion batteries are prone to spontaneous combustion is mainly because with the increase in the number of charge and discharge, metal lithium will produce dendrites, and dendrites will grow longer and longer, which will pierce the internal structure of the battery, causing a short circuit, and when it is serious, it will cause lithium batteries to burn and explode.
Sodium-ion batteries, on the other hand, have a much lower probability of producing dendrites during charge and discharge, which reduces the possibility of spontaneous combustion from the basic principle. In addition, the researchers have also carried out a large number of extrusion, puncture and other external force destruction experiments, sodium-ion batteries can ensure that there is no fire, no explosion.
What can a sodium-ion battery do
In the past decade, the rapid development of the new energy vehicle industry and the lithium battery industry has exposed the relative shortage of lithium resources, which has also become the biggest bottleneck in the future development of the new energy vehicle industry. Therefore, many relevant experts hope to use lithium-ion batteries and sodium-ion batteries to mix the loading method in the future, which not only meets the basic needs of the market, but also improves the low temperature performance of new energy vehicles. The future application of sodium-ion batteries does not stop there, cheap, safe, environmental adaptability characteristics, but also make it used in many fields.
In recent years, with the development of new energy, the "track" of large-capacity energy storage batteries has quietly opened. Finally in the field of sodium-ion batteries, the mainland took the lead in making breakthroughs, developed a sodium-ion battery with completely independent intellectual property rights in 2015, the first sodium-ion battery energy storage power station was launched in 2019, and the world's first 1 MWh sodium-ion battery energy storage device was successfully put into operation in 2021.