Washington State University (WSU) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers claim to have created a sodium-ion battery that holds as much energy and works as well as some commercial lithium-ion batteries.

This would be a step towards making a potentially viable battery out of abundant and cheap materials. Lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous, used in numerous applications such as cell phones, laptops, and electric vehicles. But they are made from materials, such as cobalt and lithium, that are rare, expensive, and found only in certain parts of the world.

Sodium-ion batteries, can theoretically made from cheap, abundant, and sustainable sodium from the earth’s oceans or crust, could make a good candidate for large-scale energy storage.

However, they don’t hold as much energy as lithium batteries. They also have trouble being recharged as would be required for effective energy storage.

The team reports one of the best results to date for a sodium-ion battery. It is able to deliver a capacity similar to some lithium-ion batteries and to recharge successfully, keeping more than 80 percent of its charge after 1,000 cycles and reported their findings in the journal ACS Energy Letters.

Main image: WSU PhD graduate Junhua Song and colleagues claim to have created a sodium-ion battery that holds as much energy and works as well as some commercial lithium-ion battery chemistries