Sodium-air battery research shows promise compared to Lithium-air research

Lithium-air batteries have been one of the supposed saviors of electric vehicles, with ultra-high energy density. Some researchers at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Justus-Liebig-University Gießen in Gießen, Germany have developed Sodium-air battery technology they say is far better than Lithium-air. The key flaw of Lithium-air batteries is, according to these researchers, their inability to be recharged – however the IBM lithium-air battery researcher I spoke with last Spring said Li-Air batteries could very well be recharged, but that it would be a fairly slow recharge rate.

The Sodium-air battery demonstrated by the researchers have an energy density of 1600 watt-hours/kilogram which is 10x the density of today’s lithium-ion batteries, but falls well short of lithium-air batteries. Unfortunately the batteries quickly degrade and are useless after only 8 charge cycles.

What may make Sodium-air batteries attractive is that Sodium is an abundant and inexpensive material, unlike Lithium.

For more details see:
Sodium-air battery offers rechargeable advantages compared to Li-air batteries

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About David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer living in Silicon Valley. He primarily writes about electric vehicles, clean energy systems, climate change, peak oil and related issues. When not writing he indulges in software projects and is sometimes employed as a software engineer. David has written for sites like PlugInCars and TorqueNews, and worked for companies like Sun Microsystems and Yahoo.