Will China pull ahead with battery technology? | Transforming Business

When salt-powered e-cars recently rolled off the production lines in China, it hit the headlines. Not only because sodium makes up one of our favorite table condiments, but also because, so far, no electric vehicle has been able to run without lithium – an element that is difficult to extract and pretty expensive. So what are the pros and cons of the new sodium-ion battery technology? How big is the market? Why is China so far ahead in sodium battery technology? And what role do European companies like Northvolt and Altris play?

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:42 The role of lithium in battery production
1:28 Sodium-ion batteries come into play
2:28 Chinese CATL produces the new batteries
3:24 Impact for lithium producers in Latin America
4:24 How sodium-ion batteries are produced
5:28 The European battery manufacturer Northvolt
6:19 Why is China so far ahead?
7:33 Booming market for lithium-ion batteries
8:38 Conclusion

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#Transforming Business #sodiumbatteries #batterytechnology

Chinese electric cars are making  headlines again, because some of   them are running on batteries made of salt.  Well, that’s what’s being reported at least.  Until now, lithium has been the key  ingredient in e-car batteries. But it’s   difficult and expensive to obtain. But salt, aka sodium, isn’t. 

I really can see these headlines in front of  me. Are sodium-ion batteries the lithium killer?  Does China’s head-start mean they’ll  rule the market again? Or do companies   in Europe stand a chance of competing? Welcome to this episode of Transforming Business.  Lithium is an ultra-light element that’s  become an integral part of battery technology. 

But it’s relatively difficult and  expensive to procure. Extraction   methods vary depending on where it comes from. The three biggest producers are Australia,   Chile and China. Until now China is by   far the largest battery producer. We’re going to need more battery  

Capacity in the next few decades not just  for our smart phones, laptops, and electric   cars – but to store wind and solar energy. The market will probably not only double until   2030, it’s probably five times more like this. Martin Oschatz is a professor for the Chemistry  

Of Energy Materials at the  University of Jena, Germany.  Relying on lithium alone won’t cut it –  the world will need every option available.  That’s where sodium-ion  batteries come into the picture.  So let’s take a look at that element. Beneath the earth’s crust, sodium is abundant,  

Making up around 2.3 percent. It might not sound like much,   but that’s over one-thousand times more than the  amount of lithium found under the earth’s crust.  Not only is it more readily available, but it’s  also cheaper. In early 2024 sodium carbonate   was valued at approximately  290 dollars per metric ton. 

Battery grade lithium carbonate was  more than 13,000 dollars per metric ton.  And lithium batteries need precious minerals like  cobalt and nickel to work, but sodium doesn’t.  It’s found everywhere. It is simply salt  and not limited to a specific region. 

The world’s largest battery manufacturer – Chinese  CATL – already went big on sodium-ion technology   in 2021. Just two years later, it was supplying  Chinese carmaker Chery with salt batteries.  And recently, this e-car type from JAC group’s  Yiwei was in the spotlight. Reports say that  

Some of the cars from this model  are powered by a sodium battery.  This probably means that in some Chinese  cities, tiny salt powered e-cars are already in   use – though we weren’t able to find any further  information or figures on how many of them. 

At the moment I think China is leading  the race. One should never give up. But   we have this technology sooner or  later with us also I think, but now   it’s in China and we have to close the gap. But what does that mean for the big lithium  

Producers Chile, Bolivia and Argentina? They  constitute what’s known as the lithium triangle,   because together they own about 53  percent of lithium reserves worldwide.  Does the invention of sodium-ion  batteries threaten their terf?  We tend to compare lithium-ion and sodium-ion  technology as competitors and I really can  

See these headlines in front of me: Are  sodium ion batteries, the lithium killer?  This is Alexander Buckel. He’s a battery cell  development manager at Altris. He and William   work for a Swedish sodium ion battery startup,  located about an hour’s drive from Stockholm,   in a city called Uppsala. He tells us that his entry  

Into the sodium-ion battery sector  started by accident during his post-doc.  We were producing so much blue powder that there  was blue all over the walls and all over the fume   hoods and the university was getting upset at us. Here’s how sodium ion batteries are made: 

First, this bright blue  powder is made into a slurry.  And then coated onto aluminum foil. It’s dried in a big machine like this one.  And then compressed on a machine like this. The excess is trimmed away with a laser cutter. 

All these black squares are stacked together, before going into a hermetically sealed glove   box here – and where electrolytes are  added in under a controlled environment.  Then it is just a matter of testing the battery. One of the arguments for sodium-ion batteries is  

That they can “cycle” more, which means  they can be used and recharged and used   again more than lithium-ion batteries. Talking about lifetime here we have to of   course also talk about in what applications  are they being used, for example portable  

Electronics. A person is very happy if you can  charge and discharge your mobile phone more than   1000 times without losing a lot of capacity. And what about cars? Remember the headline   that Chinese e-cars are powered by sodium-ion  batteries. Can’t the technology be scaled up? 

With lithium-ion batteries, we have a great  product market fit for especially electric   vehicles. And this is also where we see that  sodium-ion batteries will have a hard time   mainly because there is an inherently  lower energy density to the technology. 

This is Andreas Haas from the Swedish firm  Northvolt, a big lithium-ion battery producer in   Europe. It works with Altris in sodium ion battery  development and production – and wants to reach   full-scale production by the end of the decade. The hardest part about  

Operating it is that you need battery technology.  It’s actually not making one good battery in a   laboratory. It’s to produce a million of those  including the supply chain of it including   the gigafactories that you need to build. But why is China so far ahead? Experts say  

That while Europe has been researching  sodium-ion batteries for longer,   China actually commercialized them earlier.  And got a head start of at least 3 or 4 years.  One of the main hurdles they face is weight. They  tend to be heavier than lithium-ion batteries. 

So, the physical dimensions will be a little bit  larger. And so, these are the main drawbacks of   sodium versus lithium. It’s the weight, it’s the  volume, the energy density is therefore a little   bit lower compared to lithium. William estimates that they are  

About half as powerful as their lithium  counterparts, in terms of generating power.  This isn’t a problem for small cars, like  those now used in China – but for bigger   EV’s meant to drive longer distances,  larger and heavier batteries are needed. 

With the sodium batteries, we think that  first in the energy storage system market   where we have 20-foot containers that  are basically just being placed next   to renewable energy assets and substations. We’re talking about stationary energy storage,   battery driven industrial equipment like  warehouse machinery, forklifts and so on.

And while the production of sodium ion  batteries is slowly getting underway – the   market for lithium-ion batteries is booming. One estimate puts the market value of Sodium-ion   batteries at 920 million US dollars by 2030. By comparison, lithium-ion batteries’ market   value is expected to grow to  over 270 billion US dollars. 

We will probably at least in the next  20 years do not have the situation that   so many sodium-ion batteries are made  that lithium-ion battery production is   decreasing. Maybe they are closing the gap. But  a decline in lithium-ion battery production at  

The moment is not on the horizon in my opinion. The two technologies are similar in many ways,   something battery makers have  realized. Many lithium battery   producers have started investing in sodium. I believe rather than viewing lithium-ion and  

Sodium-ion batteries as competitors, it would be  more accurate to see them as a part of a larger   landscape and energy storage solutions. So, what does China’s head-start mean for   other companies trying to enter the market?  Can they compete? The fact is that China is  

A forerunner in the production of electric  vehicles and car batteries. And it’s already   begun commercializing sodium-ion batteries. Sodium is cheaper and available in larger   quantities than lithium. But sodium-ion  batteries are bigger and heavier.  European companies are working on  a viable product. But experts say  

That China is at least 3-4 years ahead. We will probably know in a few decades   how successful they were and whether  sodium-ion batteries will dominate   the market or be used alongside lithium ones. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.