Designing Rechargeable Batteries with Sodium

UNSW and Vecor Technologies are pioneering large-capacity sodium-ion batteries using cost-effective, high-yield, and sustainable fabrication strategies, addressing the growing demands for renewable energy solutions. 

The future is electric: from cars to consumer electronics and renewable energy storage solutions, everything depends on our ability to produce more affordable and sustainable batteries. Currently, lithium-ion batteries lead the market, but the limited resources constrain price reductions and, thus, the high cost of the mineral precursors. Further, the extraction of lithium, cobalt, and nickel—the primary components of these batteries—involves energy-intensive processes that often lead to significant environmental degradation, water depletion, and contamination, with considerable socio-economic impacts on local communities in mining regions. Lithium-ion batteries also pose safety risks, as they can overheat at high voltages, often leading to thermal runaway.  

This challenge highlights the urgent need for innovative battery technologies that complement existing systems by utilising safer, more abundant, and environmentally friendly materials, ensuring sufficient energy storage capacity to meet future demand. 

To address the preceding shortcomings, UNSW, in partnership with Vecor Technologies, is developing a high-yield, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly fabrication strategy to make highly efficient and sustainable rechargeable cobalt-free batteries, in which sodium is used instead of lithium  

Sodium-ion batteries offer several notable advantages over lithium-ion batteries: 

• Cost-Effective: Sodium-ion batteries are less expensive. NEMCAT’s new technology is estimated to reduce the total battery costs by ~35-50% vs commercial lithium-ion batteries. 

• Ethical Sourcing: Sodium is easier to extract and does not present the labour-related and energy-related challenges often associated with lithium extraction. 

• Abundant Resources: Sodium is plentiful and readily available in oceans, seas, and the Earth’s crust, unlike lithium, which is concentrated in a limited number of countries. 

• Enhanced Safety: Sodium-ion batteries offer improved safety by reducing the risks of overheating and harmful gas emissions. Crucially, sodium-ion batteries can potentially discharge down to 0 volts without encountering the safety issues that lithium batteries face under similar conditions. 

A major advantage of sodium-ion batteries is that they can be manufactured using similar equipment to current batteries, allowing for widespread production at lower costs. The project aims to develop a 1000 mAh pouch cell by 2026 and scale up to a 20 kWh battery by 2029, specifically for Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). 

Vecor CEO Mark Ramsey said the company’s research partnership with UNSW recently moved into the area of energy storage with support from the Trailblazer for Recycling and Clean Energy. 

“As a company, we concentrate on using recycled and commonly available materials to reduce environmental impacts and reduce supply chain risks in key industries,” Mr Ramsey said. 

“We are particularly interested in exploring how to effectively utilise sodium, instead of lithium, in batteries. Unlike lithium, sodium is an abundant resource – the sixth most common element in the Earth’s crust – and can be extracted without significant environmental consequences.” 

Industry collaboration for global markets  

With substantial funding invested by Vecor to establish dedicated research laboratories for research and product development led by Dr. Sajjad Mofarah, Associate Professor Pramod Koshy and Professor Charles C. Sorrell of the UNSW School of Materials Science and Engineering, patented technologies developed by UNSW team members are paving the way for globally competitive commercial opportunities. 

Dr Mofarah said that processes developed at UNSW, based on his original research, use relatively simple facilities in a process that is neither expensive nor dangerous. 

“They can be performed at room temperature and scaled up to production capacity,” he said. 

Associate Professor Koshy noted that while our current efforts are focused on various cathode materials and designs, the collaboration has recently expanded to include the development of anode materials for sodium-ion batteries by Professor Neeraj Sharma from the UNSW School of Chemistry, along with colleagues at RMIT and The University of Melbourne who are working on the development of pouch cells. 

“By bringing these groups together, we now have the capacity to create larger complete battery systems,” Associate Professor Koshy explained. 

Given these technologies straddle three key devices for energy storage – nanomaterials, batteries and pseudocapacitors – Professor Sorrell expects major economic opportunities to be gained with the development of materials that can enter global markets. 

“Their projected respective values will reach US$107 billion, US$215 billion and US$17 billion by 2027,” he said. 

This breakthrough has the potential to transform the energy storage market, making sustainable and affordable energy solutions more accessible than ever before. 

Learn more about how Vecor Technologies uses abundant and waste materials to create products that are environmentally positive here.