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Didn’t Tesla CEO Elon Musk say one thing about new sodium batteries coming this 12 months? Perhaps so, however don’t maintain your breath. Currently, the very busy man has been busy influencing elections in a number of states whereas attending to his primary enterprise of serving to the self-proclaimed Fertilization President handle issues across the White Home. Tesla’s EV gross sales are falling off a cliff, however no worries, Tesla will at all times have its Megapack vitality storage all sewn up…. Oh wait….

Sodium Batteries Are Coming To The Power Storage Market

Sodium batteries (aka sodium-ion batteries) deploy salt and different cheap, considerable supplies. They’re additionally non-flammable and non-toxic. Transferring these attributes into long-lasting, high-performing vitality storage methods has been a piece in progress, with extra weight among the many obstacles. Now all that tough work is starting to repay and sodium batteries are starting to emerge in the marketplace, each for stationary vitality storage and mobility functions. The newest information on the mobility entrance comes from the Chinese language startup HiNa Battery Expertise, which has been very busy since launching in 2017.

In February of 2024 the market analysis agency IDTechEx caught up with HiNa, noting that the battery maker unveiled a protoype electrical microcar in 2023, alongside the discharge of its new lineup of sodium batteries. “The low-cost Sehol E10X microcar makes use of a 25 kWh battery pack constructed from cylindrical sodium-ion cells from HiNa,” IDTech Ex noticed, including that HiNa commissioned its preliminary 1-gigawatt manufacturing line in December of 2022, with plans already within the works for 5 totaling 30 gigawatts.

“Loads of competitors, like CATL, Svolt, Farasis, Lifun, DFD, Transimage, and others are at present engaged on their very own sodium-ion batteries to be mass-produced this 12 months,” IDTechEx added for good measure.

Final fall, HiNa additionally earned a name-check from the agency Analysis and Markets in a new report posted below the headline “Sodium-ion Batteries Supplies, Applied sciences and International Markets to 2029 with CATL, HiNa Battery Expertise, Faradion, Tiamat, and Natron Power Dominating the $838.5 Million Trade” (see extra sodium-ion battery background right here).

Extra Sodium Batteries For The USA

A US angle additionally surfaced final fall, although not in a mobility type of means. On October 10, the Ohio-based battery agency Acculon introduced a hookup with HiNa to carry the agency’s sodium batteries to the US marketplace for stationary vitality storage.

“This collaboration goals to exchange conventional lead-acid methods in business and industrial functions with superior Na+ know-how, providing improved security, efficiency, and vitality density. Acculon chosen HiNa after rigorous testing of a number of suppliers, recognizing their Na+ know-how as superior for knowledge facilities, grid modernization, and different crucial markets,” Acculon defined of itself.

Acculon additionally took a poke at lithium-ion battery know-how alongside the best way, noting that “industrial and business markets are looking for Na+ know-how to mitigate issues concerning the intrinsic volatility of lithium-ion battery supplies and provide chains.”

Sodium Batteries To Decrease The Value Of EVs

Circling again round to the mobility facet, final week HiNa introduced the launch of a brand new fast-charging sodium battery for the EV market, stating that it will possibly cost to 100% in 20–25 minutes and final for greater than 8,000 fees, even when fast-charging is used solely.

As described by the China-centric EV information group CnEVPost, the brand new sodium batteries are a step up from HiNa’s preliminary deal with electrical two-wheelers and sedans.

Known as “Hina Battery · Haixing,” the suite of 4 merchandise consists of the K150 and K210 for brief distances, and the K280 and K350 for logistics transportation.

“In contrast with current typical business car battery options, Hina’s sodium-ion battery resolution can assist larger output at considerably decrease prices,” CnEVPost reported, citing HiNa normal supervisor Li Shujun.

What About The USA?

Over right here within the US, the Division of Power has pumped tens of millions of taxpayer {dollars} into publicly funded R&D efforts aimed toward shaking the kinks out of sodium-ion battery know-how, with the intention of bringing vitality storage prices down, constructing extra resiliency into the provision chain, and lowering if not eliminating poisonous supplies. It stays to be seen if the IVF-obsessed Commander-in-Chief who occupies the the Oval Workplace stops the trouble in its tracks, however the sodium battery cat is already out of the bag.

Final August, for instance, the California agency Natron Power introduced plans to scale up manufacturing of its sodium batteries for the home market, starting with a $1.4 billion manufacturing facility in Edgecombe County, North Carolina.

If all goes in accordance with plan, the power could have a 24-gigawatt output, about 40 occasions the capability of Natron’s current manufacturing line. The corporate additionally anticipates creating 1,000 new excessive paying jobs and including $3.4 billion to the North Carolina economic system over the following dozen years or so

Extra Sodium Batteries Are Coming … For Your Megapacks

“Natron’s high-performance sodium-ion batteries outperform lithium-ion batteries in energy density and recharging velocity, don’t require lithium, cobalt, copper, or nickel, and are non-flammable,” Natron emphasizes (see extra Natron battery background right here).

Don’t get too excited concerning the EV angle simply but. Natron is aiming the 1.2 million sq. foot facility on the stationary vitality storage market, together with sodium batteries for EV quick charging stations.

“Natron’s batteries are the one UL-listed sodium-ion batteries in the marketplace at the moment, and shall be delivered to a variety of buyer finish markets within the industrial energy area, together with knowledge facilities, mobility, EV quick charging, microgrids, and telecom, amongst others,” the corporate states.

Natron is getting a beneficiant help from state-based financial growth funds in North Carolina, so this isn’t essentially a type of high-impact cleantech tasks that Trump and his wrecking crew at “DOGE” can attempt to wreck by suspending or clawing again funds awarded by means of federal companies.

In a single signal that the undertaking is transferring ahead, on March 6, the Czech chemical substances agency Draslovka introduced a brand new R&D settlement with Natron. “The partnership will leverage Draslovka’s deep experience in proprietary chemistry manufacturing to provide high-quality Prussian blue supplies which are essential for Natron’s superior sodium-ion battery design,” Draslovka defined.

“The power will function a blueprint to increase Draslovka’s operations within the U.S. and allow Natron’s mission of scaling sodium-ion battery manufacturing to fulfill hovering demand,” Draslovka added.

It’s additionally one other signal that competitors within the US vitality storage trade is heating up. To this point, Tesla’s Megapack has loved a wholesome share of the business vitality storage market, however that might change.

The corporate’s EV enterprise has been wilting below the warmth of name repute gone bitter, however up to now the stain has not unfold into Tesla’s Megapack stationary vitality storage enterprise. That’s to be anticipated. Model repute might be not high of the thoughts for many commercial-scale vitality managers. They’re value, effectivity, and reliability, and that’s sufficient to offer Tesla a run for the cash.

Picture: Sodium batteries are working their means into the business vitality storage market within the US, providing a safer, home, eco-friendly provide chain together with efficiency enhancements (by way of CleanTechnica archive).

A expertise that makes use of microwaves (to defrost) and ultrasound (to interrupt down) contaminants in melted lunar ice to supply clear, drinkable water for astronauts has gained the UK House Company funded Aqualunar Problem.

The Aqualunar Problem is a £1.2 million worldwide prize funded by the UK House Company’s Worldwide Bilateral Fund and delivered by Problem Works – a part of Nesta. It goals to drive the event of revolutionary applied sciences that make human habitation on the Moon viable by purifying water buried beneath the lunar floor.

The SonoChem System by Gloucestershire-based Naicker Scientific, led by Lolan Naicker, was named the winner by UK House Company’s Meganne Christian at a ceremony in Canada Home in London’s Trafalgar Sq., the place the workforce was awarded the £150,000 first prize.

Meganne Christian, Reserve Astronaut and Business Exploration on the UK House Company and chair of the Aqualunar Problem judging panel, stated:

“NASA has set the purpose of creating a everlasting crewed base on the Moon by the tip of the last decade. The Artemis programme, as it’s identified, is supported by the UK House Company via its membership of the European House Company. Astronauts will want a dependable provide of water for ingesting and rising meals, in addition to oxygen for air and hydrogen for gas. 5.6% of the soil (often known as ‘regolith’) across the Moon’s south pole is estimated to be water frozen as ice. If it may be efficiently extracted, separated from the soil and purified, it makes a crewed base viable.”

The SonoChem System employs Naicker Scientific’s groundbreaking core expertise to purify water derived from lunar ice. Harnessing highly effective sound waves, it spontaneously kinds hundreds of thousands of tiny bubbles in contaminated water. The intense temperature and stress created inside every micro bubble generates free radicals (unstable atoms that are extremely chemically reactive) which successfully removes contaminants.

Lolan Naicker, Technical Director, Naicker Scientific defined:

“Think about digging up the soil in your again backyard in the midst of winter and attempting to extract frozen water to drink. Now think about doing it in an atmosphere that’s -200°C, an almost good vacuum, below low gravity, and with little or no electrical energy. That’s what we must overcome on the Moon. If we will make the SonoChem System work there, we will make it work wherever, whether or not that’s on Mars’ glaciers, or right here on Earth in areas the place accessing clear water remains to be a problem”.

UK Science Minister, Lord Vallance stated:

“The Aqualunar Problem was set as much as overcome one of the vital obstacles to people surviving on the Moon or different planets – the provision of unpolluted ingesting water.

“By teaming up with our Canadian companions and harnessing the wealth of expertise and creativity discovered throughout the UK, the problem has uncovered a variety of recent concepts, together with Naicker Scientific’s SonoChem system.

“Many of those concepts couldn’t solely gas future house exploration, but additionally assist enhance lives and clear up water shortages right here on Earth – mitigating the impacts of local weather change as we work in direction of a internet zero future, a key ambition in our Plan for Change.”

Naicker Scientific was awarded the £150,000 first prize, with two runners up successful £100,000 and £50,000 respectively:

First runner up: FRANK – Filtered Regolith Aqua Neutralisation Equipment – developed by father and sons workforce RedSpace Ltd, Aldershot. A 3-stage method designed to ship a steady circulate of drinking-grade water in a lunar atmosphere first heats the regolith pattern in a sealed chamber to separate off risky gases and go away a liquid of water, methanol and regolith fragments. The liquid is handed via a membrane to take away stable particles. The remaining liquid is distilled to separate the methanol from the water.
Second runner up: AquaLunarPure: Supercritical Water Purification on the Moon – developed by Queen Mary College of London. A reactor melts lunar ice to separate the mud and rock particles, then heats it to greater than 373°C at 220 bars of stress to show it into “supercritical water” – not a stable, a liquid or a fuel, however a fourth state that seems like a thick vapour – by which oxidation will take away all of the contaminants in a single step.

10 finalist groups had been every awarded £30,000 seed funding in July 2024 to develop their applied sciences in pursuit of the prize and supplied with a complete package deal of non-financial help, together with knowledgeable mentoring and entry to testing amenities.

The Aqualunar Problem is delivered by Problem Works – a part of the UK’s innovation company for social good, Nesta – and the UK House Company (UKSA), in collaboration with the Canadian House Company (CSA) and Influence Canada, with half the prize being awarded to UK-led groups, and half being awarded to Canadian-led groups.

Holly Jamieson, Govt Director, Problem Works stated:

“Problem prizes are open innovation competitions that stage the enjoying area for innovators whether or not they’re well-established in a sector or coming to it for the primary time – rewarding concepts slightly than reputations. The Aqualunar Problem efficiently attracted new entrants to work within the house sector – a sector that already generates £19 billion of revenue a yr within the UK, however the place there may be nice potential for development. Competing groups have reported again that collaborating within the prize has helped them safe funding and open up industrial conversations to develop their companies. There might solely be one first prize, however the Aqualunar Problem has produced many winners.”

To seek out out extra concerning the Aqualunar Problem within the UK and be taught extra about all ten competing groups, go to aqualunarchallenge.org.uk.