Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium

Re:Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium by recursive on Thursday October 26, 2023 @01:13PM (#38028635)

Sodium is not competitive with lithium for energy density, as measured in joules/gram.

Sodium is good for stationary deployments. It's not good when weight matters.

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Re:Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium by coffeebeqn on Thursday October 26, 2023 @01:25PM (#38028806)

I wonder how well it suits home storage? Not being violently flammable would be a bonus for homeowners

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Re:Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium by SketchySeaBeast on Thursday October 26, 2023 @01:39PM (#38029017)

I'm not sure how it's held in the proposed batteries, but isn't pure Sodium violently explosive when in contact with water?

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Re:Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium by djbusby on Thursday October 26, 2023 @01:51PM (#38029197)

Batteries aren't pure sodium. Pure sodium bonded with something (eg: chlorine) is less explosive.

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Re:Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium by bogeholm on Thursday October 26, 2023 @01:39PM (#38029014)

Sodium + water is, unfortunately, violently flammable.

Add water to elemental sodium, and you get heat, hydrogen gas and sodium hydroxide.

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Re:Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium by 0cf8612b2e1e on Thursday October 26, 2023 @02:01PM (#38029363)

Any concentration of energy (gasoline, batteries, compressed air, etc) is always a potential bomb if it is released too quickly.

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Re:Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium by leplen on Thursday October 26, 2023 @10:27PM (#38033990)

The safety problem with Li-ion batteries is the electrolyte is a flammable organic solvent. It is unrelated to the amount of energy stored in the battery under normal operation.

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