<story><title>Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production</title><url>https://newatlas.com/energy/natron-sodium-ion-battery-production-startt/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rich_sasha</author><text>Are they safer? Sodium is also very highly reactive.&lt;p&gt;Otherwise agreed, I&amp;#x27;m very happy with form factor of 5-10 year old phones.</text></item><item><author>hcarvalhoalves</author><text>Even if it isn&amp;#x27;t as high-capacity, a longer-lasting and safer battery over a thinner smartphone isn&amp;#x27;t a _bad_ trade-off, specially considering chips and screens get more efficient. This might have more market than stationary batteries.</text></item><item><author>downrightmike</author><text>Lower capacity in the same form factor, but inputs are common and cheap as dirt and will be able to do the hard work of supporting grid scale battery storage. We&amp;#x27;ve learned that there are many applications that do not need to capacity of lithium.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>troymc</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s Natron&amp;#x27;s page about safety: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;natron.energy&amp;#x2F;our-technology&amp;#x2F;safety&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;natron.energy&amp;#x2F;our-technology&amp;#x2F;safety&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think the battery is a big block of pure sodium. That &lt;i&gt;would&lt;/i&gt; be unsafe.&lt;p&gt;The battery electrolyte contains sodium ions, but the same is true of salt water and Gatorade.&lt;p&gt;I think the industrial source of their sodium is sodium hydoxide, a common industrial feedstock. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sodium_hydroxide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sodium_hydroxide&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production</title><url>https://newatlas.com/energy/natron-sodium-ion-battery-production-startt/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rich_sasha</author><text>Are they safer? Sodium is also very highly reactive.&lt;p&gt;Otherwise agreed, I&amp;#x27;m very happy with form factor of 5-10 year old phones.</text></item><item><author>hcarvalhoalves</author><text>Even if it isn&amp;#x27;t as high-capacity, a longer-lasting and safer battery over a thinner smartphone isn&amp;#x27;t a _bad_ trade-off, specially considering chips and screens get more efficient. This might have more market than stationary batteries.</text></item><item><author>downrightmike</author><text>Lower capacity in the same form factor, but inputs are common and cheap as dirt and will be able to do the hard work of supporting grid scale battery storage. We&amp;#x27;ve learned that there are many applications that do not need to capacity of lithium.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>majoe</author><text>One of the claimed benefits of sodium based batteries, that I remember from the press statements of CATL, is that they don&amp;#x27;t burn, even when you but them in a fire.
The also should work in a wider temperature range, which is especially interesting for cold regions.&lt;p&gt;In the article it says, that they are using a &amp;quot;patented Prussian blue&amp;quot;. Isn&amp;#x27;t CATL also using Prussian blue in their first generation sodium batteries?</text></comment>