The plan by Western countries to replace lithium with sodium in battery production has been thwarted, while China's advantage in lithium iron phosphate batteries is evident.

On March 25, The Information published an article about cutting costs and reducing dependency on the Chinese supply chain.Western startups have been committed to research and development, aiming to replace lithium with sodium as a battery material due to its low cost and abundant supply.However, the continuous decline in lithium-ion battery prices has completely reversed the situation, making it such thatCurrently, it is more cost-effective to give up using sodium.。

Batteries produced in China

In the past two years,The price of lithium iron phosphate batteries for electric vehicles in the Chinese market has plummeted by 70%.From $155 per kilowatt-hour in 2023 to about $45.This is roughly half the average price of $87 per kilowatt-hour for sodium-ion batteries currently.

In a paper published in January of this year in "Nature Energy," researchers from Stanford University predicted that...Lithium iron phosphate batteries are likely to maintain their price advantage well into the mid-2030s and possibly even longer.。

If their prediction is correct,The cost advantage of lithium iron phosphate batteries will extend China's control over the global battery supply chain.Some analysts argue that this could give China significant influence in the Western automotive and defense industries, asVirtually all of the world's lithium iron phosphate batteries are produced by Chinese companies.。

Sam Adem, the battery materials manager at the research company CRU Group, stated that.Even if sodium-ion batteries are cheaper than lithium iron phosphate batteries, existing technologies may still dominate.He said in an interview, "Even if sodium-ion batteries are suitable for certain applications, since there is already a low-cost and mass-produced lithium iron phosphate battery,Is it really necessary to invest in a brand new supply chain?？”

Around 2021, with the continuous growth in lithium demand and concerns about a decade-long shortage of lithium, lithium prices began to soar, leading to initiatives to develop sodium-ion batteries as alternatives to lithium-ion batteries. From early 2021 to November 2022, spot prices for lithium in China increased nearly 13 times.

Prior to this, battery and automotive manufacturers had not regarded sodium as a battery material., because sodium has a much lower energy density than lithium, which would shorten the driving range of electric vehicles, and it is prone to performance degradation during the charging and discharging process. However, Chinese companies like Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) are still committed to the research and development of sodium-ion batteries. This is because sodium is 1000 times more abundant in the Earth's crust than lithium, making it almost ubiquitous. Given this consideration, sodium has the potential to alleviate the tight supply of lithium, thereby reducing the cost of electric vehicles.

More than a year ago, a Chinese car manufacturer unveiled a small city car powered by sodium-ion batteries, which came as a surprise to Western counterparts. They claimed to have successfully improved the energy density of the sodium-ion battery chemistry, making it applicable to commercial products including electric vehicles.

This has led to a surge of U.S. sodium-ion battery companies receiving venture capital.For example, companies like Bedrock Materials, Peak Energy, Standard Potential, and Unigrid all aim to outcompete lithium-iron-phosphate batteries on price in the fixed energy storage sector.

However, Stanford University PhD student Adrian Yao said,Sodium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles are more expensive than lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the industry still has a lot of work to do to reduce costs.He pointed out that due to the lower energy density of sodium and the continuous decrease in the cost of iron phosphate batteries, although sodium is abundant, it does not mean that batteries made from it would be cheaper.

Adrian Yao stated in an interview, "We believe it is necessary to avoid another wave of blind capital flowing into the wrong sectors and instead focus on projects that are truly worth investing in."

Before entering the PhD program in Materials Science at Stanford University, Adrian Yao was the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of EnPower, a startup based in Indiana focused on anode materials. He stated, "The goal is to draw on the experiences from my past as a battery entrepreneur while being clearly aware of the many false claims in the industry."

In the paper, Adrian Yao, along with two advisors from Stanford University — Sally Benson, a professor of environmental science, and William Chueh, a professor of materials science — pointed out that they simulated more than 6,000 scenarios covering possible fluctuations in the prices of sodium and other metals and minerals, as well as other potential market factors.They concluded that sodium-ion batteries can only defeat lithium iron phosphate batteries through three avenues.Significantly increase the energy density of sodium-ion batteries; focus on the entire battery system rather than individual cells, giving sodium-ion batteries an advantage at the system level; or emphasize the performance advantages of sodium-ion batteries while ignoring cost factors.

Natron Energy, a sodium-ion battery developer located in Santa Clara, California, relies on the third strategy.Performance advantages won the market.Natron Company sells its batteries to artificial intelligence data centers. The company's sodium-ion battery electrodes are made from Prussian blue, a crystalline substance originally used as a pigment. These batteries can release a large amount of energy in just two minutes, followed by rapid recharging. The energy released is five times that of lithium iron phosphate batteries, allowing artificial intelligence data centers to enable expensive chips to process more computing tasks per second.

Cameron Dales, co-founder of Peak Energy, stated that Peak is sourcing sodium-ion batteries from a Chinese supplier. Although these batteries are more expensive than lithium iron phosphate batteries, Peak's supplier expects that with improvements in sodium-ion technology and rising lithium prices, the cost of sodium-ion batteries will be lower than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries by 2027. He also mentioned that, regardless,Peak's strategy is to produce battery cells in the U.S. in the future and compete with lithium iron phosphate batteries at the battery pack level.。

Battery manufacturers have demonstrated that optimizing battery pack design, such as eliminating unnecessary filler materials, can improve energy density and reduce costs.Bedrock Materials has been striving to improve the energy density of sodium-ion battery cells, which is precisely the second approach suggested by Adrian Yao.Adem from the CRU Group stated that Chinese battery manufacturers like CATL have improved the energy density of sodium-ion batteries, but the growth rate is not as fast as that of lithium iron phosphate batteries.

Andrew Leeland, the managing director of battery metals research firm SC Insights, says that there is a fourth way for sodium-ion batteries to challenge lithium-iron-phosphate batteries:If lithium prices soar again, battery manufacturers will once again seek alternatives, and sodium-ion batteries may be the preferred choice.。

But currently, Spencer Gore, the CEO of Bedrock Company, states that,Even if Chinese sodium-ion battery manufacturers reduce their prices below those of lithium iron phosphate batteries, Western companies will need a long time to reach the same level of technology.

He pointed out, "The hope for sodium-ion batteries lies in the second-generation material technology."