Beyond lithium: Sodium-based batteries may power the future

Batteries have become so integral to everyday life – powering everything from mobile devices to electric vehicles and renewable energy storage systems – that people often don’t even think about them. But our increasing reliance on batteries has made considerations like their sustainability and ability to hold charge in a range of environments and the ability to reliably source materials needed to produce them urgent considerations.

Washington University in St. Louis / Peng Bai, Rajeev Gopal and Ethan Boutelle: Peng Bai’s research group combines stable sodium metal plated in liquid electrolyte (left) with precisely engineered particles of sodium vanadium phosphate (right) to create safe and efficient sodium batteries.

Peng Bai, associate professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, received a two-year, $550,000 Partnerships for Innovation – Technology Translation award from the National Science Foundation to support his work on sodium-based batteries. The award will allow Bai to expand his prior NSF-funded research to scale up and commercialize his sodium battery technology. 

Bai’s sodium-based batteries deliberately move away from lithium and other rare elements used in traditional batteries. Sodium, a more abundant and easier to process material, promises lower production costs and alleviated supply chain vulnerabilities, fostering a more sustainable and economically efficient energy landscape. Sodium-based batteries may also offer enhanced fast-charging capabilities and improved operation in cold environments, expanding their potential application in large-scale energy storage and portable electronics, including electric vehicles.

The project, “Development of high-performance long-life electrodes for sustainable sodium-based batteries,” has three main goals: ensuring consistency in larger production batches, developing greener manufacturing processes using water instead of toxic solvents, and optimizing production processes at a commercial scale. These advancements would pave the way for sodium-based batteries to make their way into everyday technologies within five years, Bai says.