Something to be aware of, and this is still in flux as the market is so new, but when sodium-ion batteries that use Prussian Blue/Prussian white cathodes enter thermal-runaway (or catch fire for whatever other reason), they release hydrogen cyanide gas.
Obviously manufacturers are aware of this and other chemistries of sodium-ion exist, but when a market is new you can sometimes get all manner of competing tech floating around.
I have entertained the idea of being an early adopter for home battery storage, but learning this made me hold off until their was more info/you could be sure about what you were buying.
Lithium batteries will also produce HCN in a fire. I believe sodium batteries actually produce less than lithium, but I do not have a primary source handy.
CATL isn't the first to put sodium-ion batteries into production, but they are the first large established manufacturer to do so, so chances are they won't go bankrupt before production ramps up to general availability.
And gasoline fires and high speed collisions aren't? This is the bit of paranoia around EV deployment that I genuinely fail to understand. Personal vehicles are by far the most dangerous apparatus with which we interact, already. And we're fine with it! Have you ever, even once, called a Civic or Vespa "scary"?
But put a battery in it suddenly they need new tech before you'll be comfortable?
Ask your local fire department about putting fires out in battery-powered cars versus gasoline cars. Yes, there is a qualitative difference and it's not in favor of the battery-powered cars.
That's not to say that it's a stopper for them; it's just part of the cost/benefits analysis. The idea of technologies that are better on all parts of the cost/benefit analysis at once is a science fiction or video game concept. In the real world there's always a mixture of positives and negatives between two different technologies.
Same protocol for a burning pile of tires at your favorite bumrocks exurban service station, amusingly. Yet no one loses their shit on HN about that horrifyingly dangerous technology.
I give up. This is a proxy war for something else. No one seriously is scared of batteries in the way people here keep trying to justify.
It's not just vehicles. Battery fires from electric bikes and scooters have also caused issues. And currently you can't put a battery pack into plane hold luggage because of fire risks.
How much more likely are you to be injured on an eBike vs. getting run over on a Schwinn, though? Have you ever been afraid of the bike?
The presence of a different failure mode isn't the question at issue. Yes, they're new tech and require new techniques. Duh, as it were.
It's your abject and frankly irrational paranoia that I'm calling out. Chill the fuck out, as it were. Moving things have always been dangerous, and if you believe this represents a change in aggregate risk you are simply wrong.
You seem to be turning this into a discussion of vehicles, but the post you're replying to was purely about batteries. I get it - ICE cars suck. But speaking for myself, I waited until I could get LFP batteries before adding a lot of lithium to my house. I deemed the fire risk of NMC not worth the benefits. I now have about 15kWh of LFP and I'm happy as a clam.
There is no reason I can’t put a swimming pool size battery under my house. I don’t care what the energy density is, make it bulletproof and cheap and massive.
I failed to land my point, it’s that instead of chasing small and complex battery systems to put in cars, lower tech, bigger, less convenient battery tech of the pool-under-house scale, could be an incredible option. Stationary batteries don’t have the same constraints as the portable batteries we are familiar with from even before the lithium ion age.
I don't think swimming pool is the best size. Why not a hole that's a few meters in diameter but SUPER deep? So long as your water table is sufficiently deep. This way you can service it, should you need to remove/replace contents. If it's under your house - good luck with that.
that might be a evolutionary step where you just pump in electrolyte under a housing into waterproof container and every 10 years just pump it out again for fresh electrolyte
doesn't burn like LiFePo4 so no fire risks, though I am not sure what a short-circuit would do in damage/danger
why even under a structure though, just do it like a septic tank?
I don't like the impulse to regulate, especially as a formative measure. Regulating new technology before industry has time to experiment seems like a recipe for high prices, few choices, and low competition.
Historically, vehicles actually did have completely interchangable motive components. They were called horses.
It would have been difficult given the state of other technology at the time for the inventors of the internal combustion engine to have supplied it as a drop-in horse replacement for your carriage, but you could kind of imagine that working with current technology.
note sodium-ion is no longer two or three times the weight of lithium-ion, there is only a +33% penalty
apparently the problem is there is not yet enough volume in production to compete on price, which I thought was the whole point?
> sodium-ion specs have improved to the point that the technology could break into the general EV market. A recent study by Moritz Schütte at Aachen University in Germany and his colleagues found that a sodium-ion battery by the manufacturer Hina rivals Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries on most parameters, although it would still be a third heavier
> But CATL claims its sodium-ion battery has an energy density of 175 watt-hours per kilogram, which can compete with the lithium-iron-phosphate batteries in low-cost models from Tesla and others. And while sodium-ion batteries still haven’t quite beaten lithium batteries on price, that could change as they expand, according to Schütte
> sodium ions generate less heat in electrochemical reactions, reducing fire risk, so less money can be spent on cooling. They also form weaker bonds with the electrolyte, so they don’t slow down as much in the cold
That's competing against LFP chemistry, so 33% penalty on a chemistry that itself has a penalty versus NMC.
My understanding about sodium though is that the performance in cold and heat is excellent. So even if you pay a penalty for weight, you can drop the thermal management, which saves quite a bit.
For grid storage, this chemistry will be a game changer. For vehicle, I think it has a ways to go before being preferred over LFP, but that's a guess.
I do wonder if there will be a convergence between sodium-ion battery architectures and cheaper, renewable-powered desalination. Could industrial seawater mining be competitive as a sodium feedstock source?
I just realize we have heaps and heaps of seasalt sludge around desalinization units. Dirty sludge, but salty nevertheless, right there at the fingertips. Maybe some of it could be useful?
I think it is weird that the recent breakthroughs in sodium batteries have come from China; I would have assumed they would want to keep everyone reliant on their rare earth minerals.
Something to be aware of, and this is still in flux as the market is so new, but when sodium-ion batteries that use Prussian Blue/Prussian white cathodes enter thermal-runaway (or catch fire for whatever other reason), they release hydrogen cyanide gas.
Obviously manufacturers are aware of this and other chemistries of sodium-ion exist, but when a market is new you can sometimes get all manner of competing tech floating around.
I have entertained the idea of being an early adopter for home battery storage, but learning this made me hold off until their was more info/you could be sure about what you were buying.
Lithium batteries will also produce HCN in a fire. I believe sodium batteries actually produce less than lithium, but I do not have a primary source handy.
well, this doesn't sound good.
what cathode material is used as an alternative to not make home battery a chemical weapon in disguise?
Oh look it's the quarterly "revolutionary battery tech incoming" article.
With a small but significant difference: it's in production already.
CATL isn't the first to put sodium-ion batteries into production, but they are the first large established manufacturer to do so, so chances are they won't go bankrupt before production ramps up to general availability.
where can i buy one ?
https://peakenergy.com/
They might be a bit bigger than you want for home.
Really hoping this enables safer battery tech too. Lithium fires are scary
Maybe. But anyone who has worked with sodium is likely to be skeptical of that.
Are sodium fires less scary?
In some sodium-ion chemistries they release hydrogen cyanide gas.
Yeah. Still absolutely a bad day but less rapid and dramatic
Actually, yes
sodium fires don't make their own oxygen, so I would presume they are less scary
And gasoline fires and high speed collisions aren't? This is the bit of paranoia around EV deployment that I genuinely fail to understand. Personal vehicles are by far the most dangerous apparatus with which we interact, already. And we're fine with it! Have you ever, even once, called a Civic or Vespa "scary"?
But put a battery in it suddenly they need new tech before you'll be comfortable?
Ask your local fire department about putting fires out in battery-powered cars versus gasoline cars. Yes, there is a qualitative difference and it's not in favor of the battery-powered cars.
That's not to say that it's a stopper for them; it's just part of the cost/benefits analysis. The idea of technologies that are better on all parts of the cost/benefit analysis at once is a science fiction or video game concept. In the real world there's always a mixture of positives and negatives between two different technologies.
If I'm not mistaken, a lithium battery grid-level energy storage firefighting protocol is "evacuate people and let it burn."
Same protocol for a burning pile of tires at your favorite bumrocks exurban service station, amusingly. Yet no one loses their shit on HN about that horrifyingly dangerous technology.
I give up. This is a proxy war for something else. No one seriously is scared of batteries in the way people here keep trying to justify.
>And gasoline fires and high speed collisions aren't?
Gasoline car fires are quite rarer in modern cars (don't know about the 1950s), and easier to put off than battery car fires.
And people are already afraid of high speed collisions, plus they are orthogonal of the energy technology used.
>Personal vehicles are by far the most dangerous apparatus with which we interact, already.
And under what framing does it make sense to use the above to argue in favor of adding a dangerous battery tech to them is thus not problematic?
It's not just vehicles. Battery fires from electric bikes and scooters have also caused issues. And currently you can't put a battery pack into plane hold luggage because of fire risks.
Electric bikes and scooters are also vehicles, right?
How much more likely are you to be injured on an eBike vs. getting run over on a Schwinn, though? Have you ever been afraid of the bike?
The presence of a different failure mode isn't the question at issue. Yes, they're new tech and require new techniques. Duh, as it were.
It's your abject and frankly irrational paranoia that I'm calling out. Chill the fuck out, as it were. Moving things have always been dangerous, and if you believe this represents a change in aggregate risk you are simply wrong.
>How much more likely are you to be injured on an eBike vs. getting run over on a Schwinn, though? Have you ever been afraid of the bike?
Many rightly are.
You seem to be turning this into a discussion of vehicles, but the post you're replying to was purely about batteries. I get it - ICE cars suck. But speaking for myself, I waited until I could get LFP batteries before adding a lot of lithium to my house. I deemed the fire risk of NMC not worth the benefits. I now have about 15kWh of LFP and I'm happy as a clam.
There is no reason I can’t put a swimming pool size battery under my house. I don’t care what the energy density is, make it bulletproof and cheap and massive.
"There's no reason" just "make it safe and cheap in huge size".
Kind of like there's no reason we can't go to Mars for tourism. Just make it as convenient, safe, and cheap as a jet to London.
I failed to land my point, it’s that instead of chasing small and complex battery systems to put in cars, lower tech, bigger, less convenient battery tech of the pool-under-house scale, could be an incredible option. Stationary batteries don’t have the same constraints as the portable batteries we are familiar with from even before the lithium ion age.
Cost is a reason. You need to dig out that dirt (which is expensive), it needs supports, your house needs support around it/through it…
Making things bulletproof and massive runs opposite of cheap
I figured they meant while building the house, which of course would cut costs by a lot if it were engineered for.
For some reason I wouldn't exactly feel safe knowing there is a huge battery under my house that may combust at any moment.
That's the beauty with sodium ion batteries, they are generally considered to be even less flammable than already pretty safe LiFePO4.
Unfortunately that's not exactly true.
Aqueous sodium ion chemistries like Na-VPF and Na-tmCN are more fire-safe than lithium, but they're also not as developed/available yet.
Na-NMF, which is what a random off-the-shelf sodium cell is likely to be, is actually more flammable than LiFePO4.
Why under the house? It can sit under your yard, no need to bother with so many tons of construction concrete on top of it.
I could imagine plants messing with it, unless you bury it really deep.
Not everyone has a yard lol
but everyone can afford a non-existant huge-ass battery under their house?
(Not everyone has a house either, some rent, others live in apartments, lol)
...
I don't think swimming pool is the best size. Why not a hole that's a few meters in diameter but SUPER deep? So long as your water table is sufficiently deep. This way you can service it, should you need to remove/replace contents. If it's under your house - good luck with that.
that might be a evolutionary step where you just pump in electrolyte under a housing into waterproof container and every 10 years just pump it out again for fresh electrolyte
doesn't burn like LiFePo4 so no fire risks, though I am not sure what a short-circuit would do in damage/danger
why even under a structure though, just do it like a septic tank?
It is time to standardize EV batteries like wheels: 5-10 mainstream types & competition on quality vs. price vs. range.
Regulator help is needed here.
> Regulator help is needed here.
I don't like the impulse to regulate, especially as a formative measure. Regulating new technology before industry has time to experiment seems like a recipe for high prices, few choices, and low competition.
Historically, vehicles actually did have completely interchangable motive components. They were called horses.
It would have been difficult given the state of other technology at the time for the inventors of the internal combustion engine to have supplied it as a drop-in horse replacement for your carriage, but you could kind of imagine that working with current technology.
Regulations... in THIS economy and administration????
Well, the EU regulated USB-C and it affected the whole smartphones world.
Nobody liked micro B anyways... and then there's Apple with their lightning port...
Largest Chinese companies will define the standards.
note sodium-ion is no longer two or three times the weight of lithium-ion, there is only a +33% penalty
apparently the problem is there is not yet enough volume in production to compete on price, which I thought was the whole point?
> sodium-ion specs have improved to the point that the technology could break into the general EV market. A recent study by Moritz Schütte at Aachen University in Germany and his colleagues found that a sodium-ion battery by the manufacturer Hina rivals Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries on most parameters, although it would still be a third heavier
> But CATL claims its sodium-ion battery has an energy density of 175 watt-hours per kilogram, which can compete with the lithium-iron-phosphate batteries in low-cost models from Tesla and others. And while sodium-ion batteries still haven’t quite beaten lithium batteries on price, that could change as they expand, according to Schütte
> sodium ions generate less heat in electrochemical reactions, reducing fire risk, so less money can be spent on cooling. They also form weaker bonds with the electrolyte, so they don’t slow down as much in the cold
That's competing against LFP chemistry, so 33% penalty on a chemistry that itself has a penalty versus NMC.
My understanding about sodium though is that the performance in cold and heat is excellent. So even if you pay a penalty for weight, you can drop the thermal management, which saves quite a bit.
For grid storage, this chemistry will be a game changer. For vehicle, I think it has a ways to go before being preferred over LFP, but that's a guess.
like LiFePo4, sodium-ion also won't burn
ie. so the fire department doesn't have to spend three days trying to put out a Tesla fire
for long hauls, not stop and go city traffic, the weight penalty doesn't matter as much once the weight is moving
a tractor-trailer could have a huge cell behind the cab or replacement the massive diesel tanks?
I hadn't considered that aspect. Maybe sodium will see applications for hybrid diesel trains, medium haul trucks.
I do wonder if there will be a convergence between sodium-ion battery architectures and cheaper, renewable-powered desalination. Could industrial seawater mining be competitive as a sodium feedstock source?
I just realize we have heaps and heaps of seasalt sludge around desalinization units. Dirty sludge, but salty nevertheless, right there at the fingertips. Maybe some of it could be useful?
I think it is weird that the recent breakthroughs in sodium batteries have come from China; I would have assumed they would want to keep everyone reliant on their rare earth minerals.
Not correct. Sodium-ion batteries were invented in the United States in the 1970s.
I didn’t say invented - I said recent breakthroughs.