Green Car Congress

MARCH 2, 2023

Researchers led by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have extended the capacity and duration of sodium-aluminum batteries. The new sodium-based molten salt battery uses two distinct reactions. The team previously reported a neutral molten salt reaction.

Molten Salt 396

Molten Salt Grid Design Sodium 396

Green Car Congress

MARCH 11, 2023

Tests conducted by Titirici Group , a multidisciplinary research team based at Imperial College London, have found that a novel carbon nanotube electrode material derived from CO 2 —produced by Estonian nanotech company UP Catalyst ( earlier post )—enhances the cyclability of sodium-ion batteries.

Carbon 366

Carbon Molten Salt Sodium Li-ion 366

Green Car Congress

APRIL 18, 2019

Illustration of the process to restore lithium ions to degraded NMC cathodes using eutectic molten salts at ambient pressure. Due to the rapid growth of electric vehicle markets, the worldwide manufacturing capacity of lithium-ion batteries is expected to reach hundreds of gigawatt hours per year in the next five years.

Molten Salt 230

Molten Salt Li-ion San Diego Lithium Ion 230

Green Car Congress

JULY 10, 2012

GE will invest an additional $70 million to expand its sodium-halide battery manufacturing plant in New York, which is part of the company’s new Energy Storage business. The batteries thus are produced using abundantly available raw materials such as salt and nickel and are non-toxic and fully recyclable.

Sodium 255

Sodium Molten Salt South Africa Batteries 255

Green Car Congress

MAY 18, 2010

GE Energy Storage Technologies, a unit of GE Transportation, introduced its Durathon sodium-metal halide battery ( earlier post ) for critical backup power. Sodium-metal halide cell basic chemistry. Durathon technology uses a patented sodium halide chemistry. Click to enlarge.

Sodium 230

Sodium Molten Salt Batteries Battery 230

Green Car Congress

JULY 4, 2012

Lithium-ion and molten-salt battery costs will approach $500/kWh by 2022, reducing the high capital cost of emerging grid storage technologies. Molten-salt batteries hold the most potential to be the cheapest large-scale systems, with manufacturing improvements playing the largest role, accounting for 95% of the cost reduction.

Molten Salt 218

Molten Salt Grid Li-ion Batteries 218

Green Car Congress

DECEMBER 11, 2020

The PNNL researchers have developed a process to grow high-performance crystals in molten salts—sodium chloride, common table salt—at high temperature. They found that the gliding is partially reversible under certain conditions and have proposed ways to avoid the damage altogether.

Li-ion 418

Li-ion Ni-Li Lithium Ion Batteries 418