Northvolt's Gigafactories - Christofer Haux

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00:00:06: welcome to battery generation your podcast on Electro mobility and European battery research hey there Leonard are you doing good morning Patrick Leonard we have a very exciting topic on this episode,

00:00:19: we're talking about sodium ion batteries the last year 2021 was the year of sodium ion batteries there's been lots of news announcements,

00:00:29: the biggest Chinese battery manufacturer cut it has announced to now,

00:00:34: step into the game of sodium-ion batteries that's our topic for today we're talking to one of the leading experts,

00:00:41: in Europe it is Professor dr. Stefano pastorini he is the deputy director of hemorrhoids Institute oil the coordinator of the era joint program,

00:00:51: on energy storage and as well the group leader of electrochemistry for Batteries group at hiu welcome to battery generation Professor Pasadena,

00:01:01: thank you for introducing me,

00:01:03: thank you for joining us Professor pastorini dear listeners as always if you guys like what you hear subscribe to the channel give us a thumbs up a five star rating or leave a comment

00:01:13: and if you know someone that you think we should talk to or have a topic that you think we should cover in one of our next episodes please write us an email at hello at battery generation.com that's hello at battery generation.com.

00:01:28: Not today we want to talk about sodium ion batteries why would we do that so the thing is if we are too,

00:01:35: Electrify our entire way of life we need to produce a lot of batteries and to do that we need a material that is abundantly available and easy to come by.

00:01:47: Lithium is.

00:01:50: Rare and hard to come by and that is already causing the price for lithium to increase on the market so,

00:01:58: we might need alternative materials for the batteries of our future true Stefano Pasadena could you Briefly summarize where does the raw material sodium actually appear in the nature.

00:02:11: Well sodium is one of the easiest material to to get,

00:02:16: humans are doing this since thousands of years I mean we get it from seawater with just let the sea water drying so we need a little bit of sound somewhere it's out in southern Europe every area and then we get,

00:02:31: quite a lot of sodium chloride there are about 35 grams of sodium chloride 4 kg of water so this is a very high fraction,

00:02:40: in weight with respect to any other material practical.

00:02:45: So basically we're talking about salts that right talking about the stuff we put in our salt

00:02:52: yeah and we don't even need to extract it from seawater I mean in Germany for example there are salt mines that have been already exploded since I'm a be a couple of thousand years or so so this is something which we know how to do very well,

00:03:07: mmm,

00:03:08: can we actually use the salt from sea water directly for these batteries or do you somehow have to extract that salt into metal process or anything.

00:03:19: It depends what is going to be the user mean in let's say for the processing at the production of the typical electrode materials for sodium ion batteries.

00:03:31: Sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate I used so,

00:03:36: but steal it these are easy to extract only the sodium and transform it into carbonate or or hydroxide and I bet you can see directly that the prices for sodium ion batteries,

00:03:50: are supposed to be lower than for for example lithium ion batteries correct this is the let's say kind of a dream okay.

00:04:00: It's a kind of a dream now but it might become visible upon further Improvement of the sodium ion battery chemistry as well as.

00:04:11: Considering that Lithium-ion batteries will increase in price in the future okay but right now sodium-ion batteries are a little bit less performing the Lithium-ion batteries and these then,

00:04:22: makes the cost.

00:04:23: Steel not lower so there is need of either improvements in the sodium ion battery chemistry or increase of lithium-ion chemistry which will happen both of them will happen in the near future,

00:04:36: so you're saying right now if we are going to produce a sodium ion battery for the same price we would get basically a battery with less performance,

00:04:47: exactly yeah this is the present problem the cost of a battery it's not only lithium or only sodium okay so the cost of butter is fixed by many different parameters,

00:05:01: including the case the separator a lot of inert materials which are usually not considered but they contribute to the cost of the whole cell.

00:05:09: If the chemistry so the sodium ion chemistry is less performing.

00:05:14: Or less performant than the leading my own chemistry then the overall cost will be higher right now.

00:05:22: You have also to consider in a sense the cost for example of the space occupied by these batteries I mean if if they are less performant than they have to be bigger and heavier and this will also add cost,

00:05:34: for example in terms of I can imagine on electric vehicles in terms of making the Vegas bigger towards the batteries to contain the batteries.

00:05:45: So this is the present situation nonetheless as I mentioned before there is a lot of activity going on on sodium-ion batteries and improvements are coming out.

00:05:54: Continuously and the cost of Lithium-ion batteries will increase,

00:05:58: and then very soon there will be a crossover and then sodium ion batteries will start to be a player in many applications which may be are not the top,

00:06:08: electric vehicles but for many applications on my mother's will be how far off do you think the future lies if you

00:06:15: look in your glass bowl it is not much I would say that if we keep a literally flying vehicles with the present rate this is going to happen in three to five years what and this is why Industries,

00:06:27: big Industries are starting to look seriously look at the Tekken Reaganomics of sodium ion batteries.

00:06:35: Okay so they want to be ready to produce them in a sense Europe is already late again compared to the Asian,

00:06:43: but at least we have a very strong scientific background also in Europe this time,

00:06:50: and then we can be players we respect to age.

00:06:54: Music.

00:06:59: At this point please tell our listeners how long have you been in the research of sodium ion batteries.

00:07:05: I think I started more than 10 years ago even more maybe.

00:07:10: And we're at with I've been trying to push sodium ion battery is not not only me there were a few groups in Europe quite a lot but.

00:07:18: I've to say that I found the industrial and also the policy maker level you know they really woke up last year when see ATL made this announcement.

00:07:29: So but but from the research point of view and even the development on small scale.

00:07:35: We are in much better condition that for lithium ion batteries 20 or 30 years ago.

00:07:41: Again we are for example here we are developing small prototypes in collaboration with were partner in hiiu Witch is zsw the center for solar energy

00:07:53: let's stick to the characteristics of the sodium ion battery for a while you've told me that the price for lithium ion batteries could somehow pave the street for a success of even sodium-ion batteries we see these high

00:08:07: you know raising prices how does that affect the market for sodium ion batteries than,

00:08:14: well because lithium and other materials which are used for lithium ion batteries.

00:08:20: Are scarce so their price will increase substantially in the future and then this will result in the increased cost of Lithium-ion batteries.

00:08:29: Another symptom pointed there would be a crossover that for some applications sodium ion batteries will become better cheaper.

00:08:36: And possibly even better okay.

00:08:41: Research will Industrial Research will start and Industrial Research will definitely optimized materials,

00:08:48: for the products which is very important which we cannot do in a laboratory research institution like hru for.

00:08:59: We don't scale up two tons or something like that,

00:09:02: could you once more explain the difference between the volume metric and the gravimetric energy density on the paper comparing two lithium and for example magnesium or aluminum sodium is heavier.

00:09:16: Then lithium so in general the gravimetric energy density is is lower okay.

00:09:24: Additionally some of the materials which are typically used in sodium ion batteries.

00:09:31: Have a lower density than the corresponding materials for Lithium-ion batteries.

00:09:37: And then these results in lower gravity volumetric energy density,

00:09:43: okay so right now sodium ion batteries are not outperforming are not even are not very close to lithium ion batteries both from the gravimetric and volumetric energy density.

00:09:55: What does this means is that to make to have the same amount of energy stored.

00:10:02: You need a much larger volume and weight of batteries OK and this means that all the inner components which we are not talking about.

00:10:11: But they are in the cells there will be.

00:10:15: They have a cost actually sometimes for example the electrolyte we electrolyte is not frequently mentioned but the electrolyte it's very similar to the electrolyte used in Lithium-ion batteries,

00:10:26: but you need much more because your sodium cell is bigger and these are quite a lot of cost.

00:10:33: On the other end the sodium ion batteries have also many advantages for example the negative electrode which is our carbon can usually be produced.

00:10:44: From bio waste so biomaterials which we are wasting and this is a great for sustainability because we don't need to mine.

00:10:53: Graphite or we don't need to burn oil to produce gravity.

00:10:58: Okay and this is definitely important that's actually very good news if we look at the sustainability of batteries if we are to produce batteries at that large scale

00:11:07: we need to think about sustainability so if we just look at that aspect do you think sodium ion batteries as of right now already beat

00:11:18: Lithium-ion batteries in just in the regard of sustainability,

00:11:22: I did research level yes for example we only investigate negative electrode materials which is our carbon which is made out of Bio waste.

00:11:33: But I can tell you that the best performing art carbon materials available right now it's not made out of by Oasis me again made out of oil okay.

00:11:46: So but I mean this is this is the research I can also tell you that we are that there are works there is a lot of activity right now actually.

00:11:56: In recycling the graphite,

00:11:59: electrode in Lithium-ion batteries so that we don't need to mine graphite or at least we need to mind less gravity as well as to produce less graphite from oil okay this is a general trend for old battery.

00:12:13: So raw materials okay sodium is easier the positive electrode of sodium ion batteries do not.

00:12:23: There are good materials very promising materials that not contain Cobalt at all there are even good materials that do not contain eagle.

00:12:32: And because this is going to be the next problem for Lithium-ion batteries the availability of Niger okay.

00:12:39: And and then obviously since Cobalt nickel and lithium price will increase very soon sodium ion batteries will become a serious player and importantly.

00:12:50: Before we now talk about applications the you know devices that,

00:12:56: could be run by sodium ion batteries I would love to talk about safety and recycling of sodium ion batteries as you have mentioned the more sustainable and the cheaper we get,

00:13:07: probably recycling would become something that you wouldn't focus on because you,

00:13:15: are not necessarily one to you know get out the cheap stuff out of these you know done battery so what do you think about recycling of sodium ion batteries then.

00:13:27: I mean when we reach the scales which are foreseen for lithium ion and sodium ion bodies we will recycle.

00:13:35: I mean consider that maybe more than 90% of lead acid batteries are recycled let this supposed to be very cheap material right but the scale the production scale has been so big that without recycling lead would be as expensive as gold.

00:13:50: This is the cosmic okay and the same will apply also to lithium ion batteries and to sodium ion batteries I mean it's the scale you you reach that forces you to recycle.

00:14:03: Okay I mean really let does it bother he's are recycled in a very high fraction I mean much more than lithium ion battery is now okay but the scale all the does it is still larger and the recycling is established.

00:14:17: So we only need to establish the recycling for the other battery game.

00:14:21: In terms of safety this is actually one of the main advantages of sodium ion batteries and the advantage is a little bit complicated to explain but I will try to do it okay,

00:14:32: okay in the lithium-ion battery you are forced to use copper as the current collector for the negative electrode okay.

00:14:41: Works perfectly no problem the only problem is that if you discharged completely the battery down to zero percent.

00:14:49: So I strongly recommend everybody never to discharge the battery down to zero percent.

00:14:55: It could happen that the copper it is actually the so the current collector it is actually dissolving into the electrolyte.

00:15:04: And when you charge the battery again after this copper my plate and form short circuits inside the cell so it is extremely dangerous as a matter of fact practically all.

00:15:18: Producer of goods which employ lithium ion batteries have a check that avoids that the cell is completely discharged.

00:15:26: Okay you're talking about catching fire right because otherwise when you recharge it in might get on fire okay.

00:15:33: So why this is a serious issue this is a serious issue for shipping for.

00:15:40: I mean we asked about some aircrafts a few years ago that went on fire some of them white flying unfortunately for the people on board.

00:15:49: And this was due to the fact that lithium ion batteries needs to be shipped.

00:15:56: Partially charged between Thirty and fifty percent of charge okay but in this condition in this situation the battery contains a lot of energy.

00:16:06: And if you send ship many many butter is the chances that one battery will fail start to be high okay.

00:16:15: Sodium ion batteries do not suffer of this problem because.

00:16:20: Sodium does not allow you with aluminum and then aluminum can be used also at the negative current conduct as the negative current collector and this problem is solved so sodium ion batteries can be.

00:16:33: Fully discharged without any safety concern.

00:16:37: And this is just great for for safety in general of of people but also for the safety of society to the ship.

00:16:44: Music.

00:16:50: One advantage of sodium ion batteries for forgot is when comparing for example to lithium iron phosphate,

00:16:57: is that at lower temperatures sodium-ion batteries perform much much higher you have talked about safety now I guess lithium iron phosphate batteries,

00:17:07: are pretty safe as well right so I guess the the performance at lower temperatures is something that especially in the electric vehicle Market should be once more emphasized right.

00:17:21: Yeah,

00:17:22: yeah I mean did you my time phosphate is a very safe positive electron material but the problem I mentioned before is on the negative electrode so they still cannot be shipped or fully discharged

00:17:34: okay so there is still a safety risk.

00:17:37: On the other end graphite is suffering at loads so still the negative electrode of lithium ion battery is suffering at low temperatures,

00:17:46: So Below minus-10 degrees Centigrade actually,

00:17:51: different processes occurring into the cell and lead your medal displayed at the rather than lithium ion be stored into graphite and this is a big safety risk,

00:18:00: sodium seems to be less prone to these to these temperature let's say limitation okay,

00:18:08: so if I go out in the field and I shoot a video usually the camera is powered by a lithium ion battery pack,

00:18:15: and I found an experience that if I shoot in low temperatures my capacity seems to be a lot lower

00:18:22: so is this if I were to use a sodium ion battery in the future I now right now they're still too big but,

00:18:29: would I be able to shoot a video and not have a negative impact if I shoot in low temperatures,

00:18:36: this could be could be but still we need to get to the point of really Mass producing sodium ion batteries and do tests on Final devices.

00:18:47: But from the scientific point of view this could be possible.

00:18:52: Just to you said that if you shoot a video with caused whether you have less less let's say time right.

00:19:02: But the real problem for the lithium-ion battery is not the discharge I mean this is annoying the fact that you have less shooting time.

00:19:10: But what is the real promise that if you try to charge your battery when it's cold,

00:19:15: so imagine that just to make another example you have your electric car I have an electric car no problem I start and it's very cold outside and then very sad than I have to break.

00:19:26: When I break my but the battery in my car is going to be charged.

00:19:31: But if the battery is very cold then there is a problem okay so for example the lithium ion batteries need to be also heated warmed a little bit.

00:19:41: So that this problem does not occur okay we have now talked about many characteristics we talked about the

00:19:47: the abundance that price safety performance and even the recycling let's come to the life span of sodium ion batteries,

00:19:59: what is there to expect.

00:20:01: I mean right now again there are lithium ion batteries are better but they have been industrialized and the industry industrialization of this products I mean really brings great improvements Okay so.

00:20:14: The the principles of sodium ion batteries are very similar to those,

00:20:19: those of a lithium ion battery and I would expect that with the property development for the industrialization that will achieve more or less the same performance of did you my own batteries in some cases even better that would be really impressive because,

00:20:33: if we were to reach that point we would also have batteries that are more sustainable perform better at lower temperature,

00:20:42: that Patrick what did I forget cheaper that are cheaper yeah yeah yes yes this is what we we have been selling in the last 10 years okay.

00:20:53: But we need to make this a reality still there is some research still also at the laboratory level but especially the Industrial Level so now it's time for industry to take up like they're doing in China,

00:21:07: and really industrialize the processes,

00:21:11: and demonstrate that sodium ion batteries can become real player in the battery let's say field okay

00:21:19: I guess the first Niche that cut l wants to succeed in is the electric vehicle Market but not the battery that is powering your motor but first of all replacing lead is that correct,

00:21:33: yeah yeah that's for sure I mean sodium ion batteries could be a great replacement for lead-acid Batteries but also for.

00:21:44: Even nickel-metal hydride I would say right now nigga metal hydride ever Market because because they are replacing lead acid batteries but.

00:21:53: In the future so you might have malice can definitely cover all these applications so light they give away goals scooters.

00:22:02: Vagos for which the the let's say driving range is well known so I can imagine I don't know the mail delivery or stuff like that.

00:22:13: In all these cases it's easy to force in the application of sodium ion batteries.

00:22:20: Obviously if you want to have a top car and German is very good in this maybe they will have to stick with lithium for for a little longer.

00:22:29: That's my personal forecast on the market I cannot enter in my many more details I mean.

00:22:36: But this is my forecast that sooner or later sodium ion will enter pretty soon actually.

00:22:42: And first we replace lithium-ion wherever the top performances are not requests.

00:22:49: Mondadori okay well then let's talk about stationary batteries for a while do you think that could be as well a niche for sodium ion batteries because I guess weight and size doesn't matter really,

00:23:02: well weight and sides always mother but for stationary application is definitely easier okay,

00:23:08: and sodium ion there can can play a role but there is a big competition there with many different chemistries do so we will see what I'm wearing,

00:23:17: now if we are going to go all in on renewable energies we need to balance out the peaks in our grid and we need some sort of storage devices would sodium-ion batteries be a feasible solution,

00:23:28: for that too and would they be that right now or do you think that's also more in the future,

00:23:35: it depends what you what I mean when we talk about the electric the the greed of a country okay,

00:23:44: there are very different time scales and this is something we are actually investigating in in a large European project we are coordinating here.

00:23:54: Name is stories.

00:23:56: So conventional Lithium-ion batteries and sodium ion batteries for the greed can just can only be useful for very.

00:24:05: - range of applications okay so if you are talking about already the.

00:24:11: I don't know I have a Lithium-ion batteries in my house in Italy to close the day and night cycle of my photovoltaic panels.

00:24:21: But when you are talking about the grid you need the really huge amount of,

00:24:25: energy storage if we are talking about the daily and weekly cycle then we are talking about maybe redox flow batteries and similar systems,

00:24:36: if we go about the one week.

00:24:39: I mean we I don't think we should consider batteries anymore I mean this is not an option the energy you can store in a batteries is not enough,

00:24:47: to cover these long-term storage Peak shaving.

00:24:51: Frequency regulation this kind of application than lithium ion or sodium ion batteries can play a role maybe even the day and night cycle four hours of.

00:25:01: Music.

00:25:09: Professor Pasadena you also research a so-called salt water battery.

00:25:15: The one part the one electrode is actually salt water how does that battery work,

00:25:22: this is in line with what I was I said before I mean we are really looking for long scale long-term storage of energy and salt water batteries sea water bodies can be useful because.

00:25:35: One electrode you don't care is just comes from the from the seawater okay the other electrode it is actually sodium metal.

00:25:44: Which is then concentrated and this allows you to accumulate a lot of energy.

00:25:51: You have presented this project as

00:25:54: perspectively huge containers being built at the seaside maybe at the Baltic Sea in Germany or the North Sea so you have the salt water directly coming into the battery

00:26:07: yeah you can also use again salt from salt mines for example or like this disease this is actually the approach.

00:26:17: And interestingly is that you can use this battery also for extremely long term storage because as I said the US tracked sodium when you have excess renewable,

00:26:29: and then these sodium can be accumulated somewhere and reuse when you need energy so you can even consider to Do seasonal storage.

00:26:37: But you can also consider to use the sodium to power ships for example.

00:26:41: So in the artboard you produce the sodium the ship because you have sea water and hopefully wind and sun,

00:26:48: okay and then you load the the sodium in the on the ship and the ship make use of sodium to produce electricity and go.

00:26:57: Waste product can be trashed in to see water again because actually it's going to be the component of seawater,

00:27:03: what downsides should be considered at once I heard something about chloride gas being extracted at the one electrode so toxicity is that something to talk about,

00:27:14: this is what happens during charge so when you are accumulating sodium you are also producing chlorine but this is a very precious chemical I mean.

00:27:24: We defeated covid thanks to the disinfectants and all of the most of them are based on chlorine okay or bleach or I mean color chemical industry is growing to 3% per year and they need more and more chlorine so.

00:27:39: This is actually a precious byproduct is not something we want to waste.

00:27:43: I'm definitely see what there are we interest there are some technical challenges to be solved I mean obviously,

00:27:50: you have sodium metal you have seawater you don't really want them to get in contact so the key point is to develop a solid electrolyte that prevents.

00:27:59: The the two electrodes to get in direct contact.

00:28:02: And there is where scientists and Engineers now are working in trying to scale up the solid electrolytes with the large sides required for.

00:28:12: Real application not not the small cells we make in our lives.

00:28:18: But these extremely important and could address the problem of seasonal storage of energy.

00:28:24: Which is a serious problem with Renewables energy perfect Last Words Lana DF something to add

00:28:31: just think this is a really promising new technology from what I hear now I'm really excited to to stay tuned to find out what will happen in the upcoming years I think this will be a very exciting period for a sodium ion batteries

00:28:44: thank you very much Professor pastorini that's it for today,

00:28:49: if you as a listener got any questions or any further information or ideas about sodium ion batteries please email us

00:28:57: that is hello at battery generation.com and of course we're thrilled.

00:29:03: For your comments below or even a five star rating in your podcast app thank you for listening thank you very much for your time Professor pasolini click in tune in and stay charged thank you for inviting me bye-bye.

00:29:17: Music.