The future is electric.
Everything from cars, to consumer electronics to
renewable energy storage is dependent on our ability to
build more and better batteries.
Today, lithium-ion batteries dominate those
markets, but demand for the critical minerals needed to
make lithium-ion batteries is predicted to outstrip
supply. That, combined with cost considerations and
concerns over energy security, are leading
companies and countries to consider alternative battery
chemistries.
With challenges around, say, lithium, nickel, cobalt
supply, some OEMs have turned to sodium ion.
Sodium-ion batteries have a similar design to
lithium-ion batteries, which means the two can be
manufactured using similar methods.
Both generate electricity through a chemical reaction
and are made up of an anode, cathode, separator
and an electrolyte. But in a sodium-ion battery,
lithium ions are replaced with sodium ions in the
battery's cathode, and lithium salts swapped for
sodium salts in the electrolyte. Like lithium,
sodium, which is part of salt, needs to be chemically
processed before it can become the feedstock that
goes into the cathode and electrolyte.
Sodium is right by lithium on the periodic table, which
means that the two are chemically very similar, but
sodium is much more abundant. It's also cheaper.
Although still in its infancy, the market for
sodium-ion batteries is expected to be worth over
$11 billion by 2033.
While sodium-ion batteries can't compete with
lithium-ion batteries in terms of range in electric
vehicles, they do present some unique advantages.
It doesn't use the expensive raw materials.
There's no cobalt, there's no copper, there's no
lithium, there's no graphite, which is really
primarily controlled by China today.
What we're actually going to see is a production Natron
battery cell that's been fully charged.
And actually we're going to drill straight through it
with a hole saw.
And what we're going to find is it's just going to
sit there. You know, there's no safety hazard.
There's no fire.
Chinese battery giant, CATL, recently announced that it
would supply automaker, Chery, with sodium-ion
batteries for its EVs.
Other battery companies like SVOLT and French-based
startup Tiamat are pursuing similar technology.
CNBC spoke to two companies, California-based Natron
Energy and UK-based Faradian about their plans
to commercialize sodium-ion batteries and the
technology's place in the evolving battery market.
Sodium-ion batteries have been around since about the
1970s and 80 seconds, but large-scale development of
the technology was abandoned in favor of
lithium-ion batteries.
But now, the technology is getting a second look.
Excitement around sodium-ion batteries was
reignited after the world's largest EV battery maker,
CATL, revealed it was investing in the technology
in 2021, with plans to establish a basic industrial
supply chain by 2023.
Similar to lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion
battery cathodes can be made of different materials,
which companies are experimenting with to give
their batteries specific properties. But overall, the
materials used to make sodium-ion batteries tend to
be cheaper than the materials used in
lithium-ion batteries.
This cell, about 80% of the cost of the cell is the
materials. And if you compare it with the bill of
materials for lithium, in volume, you're looking at
between 24 to 32% less expensive for the bill of
materials for sodium ion compared to lithium ion.
Besides doing away with lithium, sodium-ion
batteries do not require the use of other critical
materials like cobalt, which has been associated
with human rights abuses.
Plus, sodium can be found anywhere.
It's hugely abundant.
It's not just widely available in terms of the
current sources of sodium in sea salt, but it's
contained in the crust of the earth around the world
as well. Lithium, the majority of that is within
basically three countries, Australia, China and Chile,
and developing to be a handful of more countries,
but still hugely concentrated. 70 or so
percent of the current cobalt production is in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
And again, the vast majority of that is being
refined in China. So so these are obviously key
bottlenecks in terms of the supply chain.
Another draw of sodium-ion batteries is that they have
a longer cycle life, meaning that the battery can
be charged and discharged more times than lithium-ion
batteries and can operate in a wider range of
temperatures.
With sodium-ion batteries we have a very wide temperature
operating range.
So down to -30 and all the way up to plus 60.
We've demonstrated capability to go up to plus
80 degrees C as well.
And that again is because of the intrinsic elements of
the electrolyte and the materials that we're able to
use.
Battery fires have also been an issue that's dogged
lithium-ion technology, but experts say sodium-ion
batteries will be much safer.
Lithium ion, you always need to have 30 to 40% charge in
a battery. That's why when you get on a plane and they
ask you to take out your batteries, if you're going
to check in a bag, it's for those reasons because they
can become unstable and catch fire.
And sodium ion is very unique in that way that we
can ship these at zero volts.
So it's like essentially shipping a bag of
electrolyte, not an active battery.
For all of its advantages, the Achilles heel of
sodium-ion technology has been its energy density,
which is the amount of electrical power a battery
can store with respect to its mass.
What this means is that in order to hold the same
electrical charge, sodium batteries need to be bigger
and heavier than their lithium counterparts, which
can be a problem for EVs, where space is limited.
Today, sodium-ion batteries have an energy density
similar to that of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Lithium ion chemistries containing nickel, manganese
and cobalt have the highest energy densities.
These energy densities translate to range in
electric vehicles.
Despite its diminished range, experts say
sodium-ion technology has a promising future and
companies are rushing to ramp up production.
One of those companies is Faradian, which was founded
in the UK in 2011.
In 2022, Indian conglomerate Reliance
Industries acquired the startup for $135 Million.
Reliance owned captive demand is massive.
They have the largest oil refinery in the world moving
to renewable energy.
They have one of the largest telecom companies in
the world with Jio, and they have one of the largest
retail businesses in the world.
So there's all these power requirements.
There's delivery vehicles, there's telecom
applications.
The cathode in Faradion's battery cells is a chemistry
known as sodium layered oxide and contains sodium,
nickel, manganese, magnesium, titanium and
oxygen. The anode is made of hard carbon, which comes
from coconut shells or other biomass materials.
Quinn says Faradian is initially focusing on
producing batteries for the stationary energy storage
market. This can include things like providing backup
power for telecom companies or storing excess energy
generated by renewable resources like wind and
solar, either on the grid scale or in individual
homes. Next, Faradion plans to expand into the low speed
electric vehicle market.
Think electric bikes, scooters and rickshaws.
Heavy machinery like forklifts are also a
contender for Faradion's batteries.
Faradion installed its first sodium-ion battery for
energy storage in Australia in 2022.
The company says its batteries are already
competitive with lithium iron phosphate technology.
In our production-size cells they currently are 160 watt
hours per kilo. And we've got development activities
that are taking us to 190, 200 plus watt hours per
kilo.
As it continues to improve the energy density of its
batteries, Faradion does see a future where it moves
into the EV market, starting with commercial
vehicles such as busses and trucks that have more room
to accommodate larger batteries.
EV is a more crowded space.
It's a much more challenging market.
It requires a lot more capital and there's longer
design cycles. On the other hand, you know, because
there's so much interest in our technology, it's
certainly important to be on their roadmap and to be
collaborating with some of those companies because you
do want to to be able to have a seat at the table.
The challenge for Faradion now is scaling up
production. The company is building an R&D facility in
the UK to continue developing its technology,
as well as working on expanding production with
factories in India.
We're building up pilot facilities to go into the
hundreds of ton range, both from the material side and
cell manufacturing side, and then also in parallel
building up the gigafactories to be able to
go up into the gigawatt hour scale per year.
Natron Energy is another company trying to
commercialize sodium-ion battery technology.
Founded in 2012, in Santa Clara, California, as a
spinoff of Stanford University, Natron focuses
on making sodium-ion batteries using a
sodium-rich material based on the pigment Prussian
blue.
Prussian blue is a consumer product.
It's a pigment. You'll find it in paint, blue jeans, all
sorts of things. It turns out that it's also great at
storing energy in the form of sodium ions.
In general, it is a relatively simple compound
to formulate. Any chemical plants with quality control
and process control to make high-purity material can
make Prussian blue.
For its battery cells, Natron uses a sodium
material rich in iron for the cathode and a
manganese-rich sodium material for the anode.
The anode and the cathode electrodes are deposited
onto aluminum foil, similar to what you'd have in your
kitchen. The packaging is made of this laminate
material that's aluminum foil coated with plastic.
In between the two electrodes, we would have
some kind of separator and that separator is
effectively plastic wrap with a little bit of silica.
So so glass dust embedded into the plastic.
And that's really about it.
Natron has outsourced production of its electrode
material to special chemical maker Arxada in
Switzerland. The company is continuing its R&D efforts
and runs a pilot-scale production line where it
says it can produce between 100 and 200 battery systems
per month.
One of the advantages of sodium-ion technology is
that it can use the same manufacturing plants as
lithium-ion batteries.
Natron is taking advantage of this, partnering with
Clarios to use part of the lithium-ion battery maker's
Michigan plant to begin large-scale manufacturing of
its sodium-ion batteries in the fall of 2023.
The beauty of that specific plant is it's sort of medium
volume. You know, it gives us an opportunity to prove
that we can manufacture these sodium-ion batteries
on lithium-ion lines before we then go out and build a
global-scale plant. But at some point in 2024, next
year, we're going to be running this plant at a rate
of about 3.5 to 4 million battery cells per year.
The company is not initially focusing on the EV market.
Instead, Natron is targeting the data center
market, where it says its batteries can provide backup
power in the case of an outage. EV fast charging
stations are another possible future market.
Natron is already testing this application with
investor Chevron.
Imagine pulling into this station.
There are a whole bunch of chargers there and all the
cars plug in at the same time. And now the power load
on the electric grid is enormous.
It can be really hard for the grid to support all
those vehicle charges simultaneously.
And so a lot of station operators are actually
moving to a model where they would put big
stationary batteries in the station to provide those
pulses of power to charge the vehicles.
United Airlines has also invested in Natron and plans
to use the company's batteries to electrify its
ground operations.
Wessells says that Natron has raised about $175
million since its inception from a number of investors,
including ABB and Khosla Ventures, among others.
Natron and Faradian are just two of a number of companies
trying to commercialize sodium-ion battery
technology. This as a number of carmakers have
already announced plans to incorporate sodium-ion
batteries into their electric vehicles.
As with lithium-ion technology, China is leading
the charge in embracing sodium-ion batteries.
Out of the 20 sodium battery factories now
planned or already in construction around the
world, 16 are in China.
The domination that China has in the current
lithium-ion supply chain, there is a risk that that
now extends to the sodium-ion supply chain
depending on where sodium-ion cell production
capacity is built out.
And at the moment, it's looking like China is going
to dominate in that, too.
Most experts believe that sodium-ion batteries have
the potential to act in tandem with lithium-ion
technology, alleviating some of its supply
constraints rather than replacing it entirely.
Ten years out, I think sodium ion is going to have
a very strong position in industrial power and grid
energy storage. For electric vehicles, there are
going to be certain market segments where sodium ion is
a great fit. The jury is really out on whether or not
that's going to include mainstream passenger
vehicles. We can see a future in which there could
be a lower cost sodium ion option and that could be a
lower trim line on a car.
And it may not have quite the same range, but it would
be less expensive.
I think where you're seeing lithium iron phosphate,
you'll see sodium ion taking market share.
I mean, lithium ion has a couple of decades head start
over sodium ion. So we will certainly be taking market
share on that for some foreseeable future.
As with any new technology, success usually comes with
scale, which sodium-ion battery companies have yet
to build out.
Keeping up with the scale of growth of the battery market
is going to be one of the probably the largest
challenge for sodium ion to reach large market
penetration.
Still, sodium-ion battery manufacturers remain
optimistic about the technology's future.
This is a once in a generation transition from
fossil fuels to green energy on a global basis,
and sodium ion is going to continue to play a big role
with that.