The biggest competitor of lithium-ion batteries

It is commonly accepted that "Fuel cells" is the biggest competitor of lithium-ion batteries.

The research and development direction of fuel cells is mainly based on hydrogen energy batteries. Compared with lithium-ion batteries, a certain amount of charging time is required. In addition, hydrogen energy batteries have almost zero pollution in the process of converting electric current. Governments of various countries have begun to invest resources to make hydrogen energy a key energy development project. The development prospects of hydrogen energy batteries have attracted much attention.

The future development of sodium-ion batteries

In recent years, battery manufacturers have begun to think about the feasibility of making sodium-ion batteries.

There are two motivations:

These two main reasons encourage experts and scholars to start exploring the possibility of replacing lithium ions with sodium ions in batteries.

According to published research literature, since the radius of sodium ions is three times larger than that of lithium ions, it faces bottlenecks such as stability and charging rate (Note 1) when sodium ions are inserted into the negative electrode (graphite). In other words, the development of sodium ion batteries is the most important challenge to overcome is the choice of anode material. In addition, lithium-ion battery technology has matured and entered mass production, and its cost is expected to drop to USD 80/kWh. If sodium-ion batteries want to replace lithium-ion batteries, the R&D cost is undoubtedly the first high wall they will face.

Further reading:The future development trend of the lithium-ion battery market.

Conclusion

There are endless cases of lithium-ion battery explosions and fire injuries. Facing the dilemma of "Good materials are not safe, and safe materials are not easy to use", how to take into account the high safety, high capacitance, high power, and high cycle life of the lithium-ion battery? It has always been a challenge for lithium-ion battery manufacturers to strive for breakthroughs. In this golden age of contention, what is the evolution of lithium-ion battery technology in the future? We will wait and see.

Further reading:The 4 major components of the lithium-ion battery

Note 1:

Charging rate (C rate), usually in C as the unit. For example, if the charging rate of a lithium-ion battery is 1C, It means that it must be taken one hour to fully charged the battery. In contrast, the discharge rate is also represented by C. If the capacity of the lithium-ion battery is exhausted in 5 hours, the discharge rate is 0.2C (1/5). Generally speaking, the discharge rate of 0.1~0.2C is healthy for the battery.

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