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The cells can be completely discharged and transported at zero volts, circumventing the increasingly stringent transportation regulations covering lithium-ion batteries. It is sometimes referred to as the blood diamond of the elements. Cobalt is expensive and there are significant ethical concerns regarding its mining practices. Electrodes for sodium-ion batteries don’t have to.

In addition, electrodes in lithium-ion batteries contain cobalt.

Sodium is ubiquitously accessible from the oceans of the world,’ Goodenough explains. ‘Although there are sufficient supplies of lithium, these are not necessarily located in convenient places. In recent years, however, sodium has been having somewhat of a revival, thanks to its availability. ‘Lithium-ion technology was picked up by Sony in 1991 and its use exploded,’ says Mauro Pasta, a battery researcher at University of Oxford in the UK. The lithium cobalt oxide cathode was created, the graphite anode devised, and the rest as they say is history. Sodium – widely available as common salt – is much cheaper than lithium Source: © University of Wollongong/Paul Jones ‘However, because Li + intercalation is faster than Na + intercalation, our attention turned to rechargeable cathodes exhibiting Li + intercalation,’ he tells Chemistry World. Before lithium-ion charge carriers were settled upon, Goodenough looked at using ions from the element directly below it on the periodic table – sodium. John Goodenough, one of the 2019 Nobel laureates, played a key role in the development of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery cathode at the University of Oxford in the early 1980s. For sodium-ion batteries, its developers have primarily (but not exclusively) set their sights on the large-scale, stationary market – such as Tesla’s Australian installation.

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‘It is being used as a hammer to crack every nut and we need to start getting a little bit more sophisticated in the use of the best tool for the job.’Ī number of disruptive battery technologies are jostling to take a share of lithium-ion’s multibillion pound market – currently valued at over $37 billion (£30 billion), and projected to reach $90 billion within five years. ‘Lithium-ion has a massive span of applications,’ explains Jonathan Knott, an energy storage researcher at the University of Wollongong in Australia. It resides in devices ranging from very small wearable electronics, through mobile phones and laptops, to electric vehicles and ‘the world’s biggest battery’ – the huge 100MW/129MWh Tesla battery installed on an Australian wind farm in 2017. The lithium-ion battery powers much of our modern lives, a fact reflected in this year’s Nobel prize.