Sodium Batteries?

[JohnInStockie]

Hi Guys

Ive just heard that a new plant is being built in the US for mass production of Sodium batteries specifically for 'locomotive' use. I have no idea if this will filter down to ebikes, but was wondering if anyone new enough about this technology to speculate on its application / cost / potential?

Cheers

John

Link to article

 

[flecc]

Not suitable for us I'm afraid John. They are used in heavy transport applications, though later developments are finding their way into cars as well, such as the Smart electric and Think electric car.

They tend to bit heavy for us, but a bigger difficulty is the internal temperatures, typically above 270 degrees C, since the sodium must be molten. In practice the temperatures are now down to about 350 degrees C, a bit hot between our legs!
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[Fecn]

Potentially a very big deal for transport. Molten Salt batteries have around the same power density as LiFEPO4, but don't require rare and expensive lithum in their construction. They're just sodium and nickel, which means the packs should cost a fraction of a similar sized lithium based battery.

The downsides are a high self-discharge rate (%20 per day using power to keep the pack warm), and a slow pack startup time of a couple of days once they have cooled down, but they are well suited to daily use applications such as delivery vans.