Sodium Cell Charging and Discharging Analysis, Hardware Compatibility. Future or Niche product?
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- There is a ton to unpack with Sodium Batteries with a lot of theoretical information out there. Praise, glory and Sodium batteries being the future... really?
Let's look at this from a technical perspective: We do the full analysis of the charge and discharge curve, talk about voltage range for 12V, 24V and 48V batteries and what equipment is compatible with these new batteries.
While testing the Sodium cell, a lot of question came up, which we will answer in a future FAQ video.
Please leave your questions and test requests in the video comments.
#sodium #battery #test
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:32 Sodium Cell Specifications and Datasheet
9:01 Test Setup
10:03 First Charge
11:43 12V/50Ah Sodium Battery
13:06 Fully Charged
13:38 Discharge Test
15:16 Discharge Result
16:10 Discharge Curve Analysis
20:59 Recharging the Cell
23:13 Charge Curve Analysis
26:07 Data Sharing
26:47 JK Inverter-BMS and Sodium Battery
28:23 Victron Multiplus II running on Sodium Battery
31:18 Voltage range Sodium Batteries
31:56 FCHAO 'Peter' Inverter on 12V, 24V and 48V Sodium Battery
33:23 Verdict
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Good to see this test. Marketing department ordered the heat shrink sleeves with 1500mAh on them, the engineering department was ignored when they specified 1300mAh
Yeah, that seems to be the case. They are still advertised with 1500mAh though. I haven't tested the other three cells yet...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia The datasheet you were looking at said 1300mah 🤔 I suspect they hoped for 1500 in serial production, but got 1300.
Now leave it going, charging and discharging for a 1000 cycles.
YOu can not simulate normal use in PV, because you can not simulate temps inside cells, charging temps, dischargong temps, charging algos, not all inverters and MPPT use CC-CV. which is one of the worst charging algos. They are better charging algos, that save your battery and you can use it not 15, but 35 years. The is a lot of pdfs, how to build DC-DC BUCK, BOOST, FLYBACK charger, AC-DC charger and how to build BMS with 15 - 35 AMPS balancing curret, so you can use 35 AMPS MPPT or DC-DC charger, without communication with your inverter or BMS and BMS is still able to balance quickly to this 35 A limit.
use RE-EMF CHARGER
@@PavolFilekI’m currently designing a BMS for a sodium ion pack for my electric motorcycle, is there any charging algorithms you would recommend looking into? (You mention CC-CV is one of the worst but what’s the best?) Would you say it would be necessary to write my own algo specific to the cell?
@@kadensmith5586 I do not curently make SW for BMS, because no sutable parts and oscilloscope, but there is pdf , where is comparison algos like : Six PPC, Standard PPC, PWM, PAM, CC-PC and PC-CV. My work on BMS with 35 AMPS active non isolated and 15 AMPS active isolated balancer is stopped.
Fabulous Andy! This video is JUST what the doctor ordered, very interesting.
I’ve been wondering about these for quite some time, and previously knew almost nothing!
The massive voltage range means big problems, and actually shows how terrific the almost flat voltage curve on LFP really is.
Thanks, Dave. It's quite interesting, ey?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia VERY interesting indeed! Thanks again.
Initial impressions are that my 36 LFPs are in no danger of being replaced LOL :-)
Interesting batteries and tests. Gives the same excitement when you started exploring lifepo4 batteries.
I'm already looking forward to the next entertaining videos you'll be making for us! 😊
Thank you. Yeah, very exciting. More to come...
I down loaded your charts. Nice. I calculated the power in and out. I then integrated the power and coverted to kW-hr. The round trip efficiency was 79%.
Thanks for all that you do and show. I also enjoy the "to do" cheekyness.
CJ is one of the most common "generic" Chinese cell brands, I got lots of Li-Ion cells from that firm.
Otherwise, congratulations for the video, I really enjoyed it.
Most important advantage I see is the potential to easily calculate SoC by just getting a voltage reading. This used to work fine in li-ion and I really missed it on LFPs. Balancing would also be much easier, for the same reason.
Thanks a lot for your feedback!
Setting up a 0.5C Cycle test would be 6 full cycles per day or 2190 cycles per year.
Setting up a 1.0C Cycle test would be 12 full cycles per day or 4380 cycles per year.
Setting up Longterm tests for NMC, LFP and Sodium would be fun ☺
Do it. We will all be watching 😄
Not many sodium battery tests in the world so nice to see some of that rare testing done on your channel 👍
Glückwunsch zu den 80k 🎉🎉🎉
Thank you.
Thanks for taking these on Andy
No worries. More to come.
Very important point you touched on regarding upper limits of inverter voltage ratings.
Not only the max voltage that you can expect it to work at, but the upper voltage you are allowed to have it connected to the battery. At least a decade or more ago, when 'Raylite' lead-acid 48 volt systems were being equalised (for an hour), on a monthly basis at the required 64 Volts, there were inverters with a specified max "allowed" connection voltage of 60 volts being regularly used. I believe internal capacitors or semiconductor ratings would have been the design limit consideration for this.
60V is a common maximum voltage for MOSFETs, while for capacitors I often see 63V maximums. Neither bode well.
To really evaluate how useful they will be for an inverter you should determine voltage sag as a function of load. Say take a battery at 50% SOC, measure the no load voltage then apply 1C, 2C and 3C loads to see how much the voltage sags. Your preliminary result suggest that most inverters will only be able to use about 60-65% of battery capacity. Usable capacity might be considerably less if there is significant voltage sag with load. I am looking forward to seeing more tests.
YOu use more cells and Studer or Victron inverter and no problem.
Excellent video as usual. Someone may have already picked up on this. Sorry I was not going to read nearly 300 responses. I suggest you add an another column to the csv to calculate the joules per 2 second sample. If you do you should see that energy between 3.95V and 2.325V is about 12760J (3.54Wh) While 3.95V to 2 V is 13540J (3.76Wh).
That is roughly 90% and 96% of capacity. Inverters do need to be upgraded to properly deal with Sodium-ion but in it's current state the Victron would allow you to get 90% of the energy out of a 16 cell Sodium-Ion battery.
If all the claims about Sodium-ion turn out to be true, the wider voltage range will be a very minor problem. The average electronic consumer device already comes with a SMPS capable of 100V to 240V input.
Thank you. I cannot really alter the csv files as they won't be compatible with the EB-Tester software any more. But feel free to download them and add as much info as you want😉
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Thanks Andy. Poor wording on my part, I did not expect you to rewrite the code for EB-Tester 😀 I meant, if you take a copy of the spreadsheet ...
Hello Andy, or as we say moin Andy.... I love your videos man. You do a very good job, very structured and intense I think. Besides the learning effect, there is also a lot of fun.
I can confirm your results with my results on a 32140 sodium ion cell.
I only use 80% of the cell capacity of these cells. The 12V battery has a voltage range of 10V - 15.2V. That works perfectly. Let's see how long such a battery lasts..... Have fun and keep going on!👍
Danke Andy, sehr interessant. Ich denke schon, dass wir noch mehr von der Natrium-Technologie hören werden und dass es auch irgendwann entsprechende Hardware dafür geben wird. Vermutlich aber nicht im ESS Bereich, sondern in anderen Bereichen.
Zum Thema Überladen und Kurzschließen: Also wenn du es damit in die Nachrichten schaffst, dann würde das deinem Kanal doch noch mal so richtig Aufmerksamkeit verleihen.... kleiner Scherz, Sicherheit geht vor.
I'm really curious about the discharge curve at 3C discharge
and thank you for the great video!
Wow! Good job keeping us informed/investigating this new tech that seems to be catching on
PS I LOVE the discharge curve! The only thing I absolutely HATE about Lifepo4 is the discharge curve
I've been waiting for these Na videos =) so glad you are showing us the science of real life usage on these..... waiting to see what the 12V does, those specs sucked lol.... Love me some Andy in AU as always. You bring me smiles and brain food always, Andy.
VIVA OGG!!!!
Thank you very much. More salty video to come...
Nice video thanks Andy 👍cant wait for the next ones
Thank you!
Great to watch someone so excited about charging a battery.
I'm always very excited about charging batteries😄
Been waiting for this,exciting
What I was thinking could be done with these batteries is have two banks. One of bank sodium at a high voltage or say 102V or higher, charged more or less directly from solar. The second bank that the inverter runs off would be LiFePO4 at 48v with a DC/DC converter between the two banks. The sodium bank would hold the bulk of the storage while the LiFePO4 bank would keep the voltage for the inverter constant overnight. I wanted to see more testing on the large sodium batteries before I try it.
Ooh! Looking forward to this!
Megagut - back to the roots - endlich wieder Batterietests! :D
You right you right!! I find it extremely interesting as well!!
FINALLY! a Sodium Battery Test yey! Been waiting for this, Andy! haha
The only problem I saw here was the voltage range of the battery, which will require new hardware for most of us if we were to upgrade or "migrate" to sodium. Voltage curve for me is very nice as it's easier to determine the capacity based on voltage alone compared to LiFePO4. We need more data for the life cycle in the near future if this will indeed replace LiFePO4. Do sodium batteries have better shelf life? How does it handle stress usage? So many questions! Looking forward for the next tests to come in the future, Andy. Thank you very much!
If we are look at the bigger picture, lithium reserves are starting to deplete (or so I've heard and read) thus making it harder to mine and everything, and ultimately making lithium products way more expensive in the near future. Sodium Batteries is the way to go. Sodium itself is one of the most abundant mineral or element on earth which should make the battery way cheaper. Sodium batteries are less dense than lithium ones which should be fine if used for household energy storage. Let's leave lithium batteries to portable ones like smartphones and other gadgets.
hello, I don't think that the reserves of mineable lithium are currently starting to run out. Rather, the current demand is closer to the current maximum supply, which of course has a negative effect on the price. However, it is such alternative chemistries that can help spread market interest and offer more solutions to alleviate price pressure. The possibility of subfreezing charging may be very interesting for many places, but not for Australia.
Very interesting stuff. Looking forward to more. 👍
Thank you, Greg!
yeahhh thank you for this test ! :)
Hearing you say “shitloads” just like an Aussie… brings a tear to my eye 🥲
Salty show Andy. 45 degrees no good here in Australia. Big bush fire down here today. Hopefully, people are safe, and no more homes get lost.
Shit down there. Stay safe!
@OffGridGarageAustralia We are safe, Mother and Father in Law are near Avoca .
very interesting indeed.. Making efficient electronics for these is for sure a challenge with this huge factor 2 voltage curve. It is exciting that batteries can be made from ubiquitous materials but as long as the cycle count and storage loss are not resolved this is going to be a super niche product.
Hi Andy, as always a pretty good video about a NEW technology. Gratulations for reaching the 80k.
In case of the sodium batterie at this stage of the First Generation of these cells, there is more coming up. The chemistry and the density of these batteries will raise, to make it more reliable.
But i Think, the Energy density is not as good as LFP in the First stage.
Liebe Grüsse
Great channel❤❤❤
Thank you!
Extremely interesting video, Andy. Thanks!
The chemistry may be cheaper and better for the environment, so it could be relevant for stationary/solar use!
Topics:
- How to treat the battery good? 80% cycle? You found no info. If someone knows, it would be good knowledge.
- kWh / price and expected development. And compare that to LFP.
- If you have contacts with Victron, maybe reach out and learn if they will adapt to this?
- if a 50V inverter produce 1kW, that’s 20A at the beginning, but 40A at the end, 25V / 0% SoC. In larger setups, it’s gonna be a lot of amps, and fat cables!
Thanks Andy
Great stuff!!
hello mr andy. I had the same thoughts as you about these sodium batteries. I expect to see a refrigerator in the garage soon...I await the next tests thanks for what you do for the community
I don't have space for a fridge inside the garage😄
Great tests Andy, and so glad you started this. If their is more of a demand for these in the future, the inverters will change over time and the parameters will change too. I could not charge Lifepo batteries with my old Trace inverter and had to find the closes setting (gelcel) before I upgraded to my Victron inverter. The one thing that jumps out to me will be the cable and fuse sizing from the battery to the inverter with such a huge voltage swing for each size battery. You would probably have to use the lowest voltage rating when picking your cable size.
I can't see a huge demand for them, tbh.
Lets go to watch fore sure next epic episode! 🎉❤
I'll be glued to these videos for sure.
Thank you, guys!
Fantastic information Andy, and I’m am hooked on you channel now. I love it!
Can you tell me what you suspect will happen to the salties in their output performance within the manufacturers recommended cycles? Will it remain constant or will it degrade as the lithium-ion ones eventually do? Should one test the capacity periodically or simply rely on the SOC determine the battery “real” capacity ? It’s time for a beer! Cheers
🍻
Fascinating!
Super video ❤❤❤
Thank you very much!
Andy, First of all, thank you for conducting these tests in such a scientific manner. Excellent! Great information as always. I give these batteries ZERO frogs! With the Sodium batteries given the wide voltage range, it appears to me that you will loose all the advantages of a 48 volt based system. With such a high voltage range comes large swings in amperage through your system and blows all of your advantages in wire size that you get with a higher voltage system. Not to mention all the equipment issues you mentioned in running at these voltages. Maybe the technology will improve with time but at this time, as you would say, Nah... 🐸=0
Great Video 👌 I think the industry should "continue" to Research, Test & Prototype Lifepo4 Chemistries even further regarding Capacity & Wh / Kg alongside with the newer Sodium Batteries. You just can't beat that FLAT Discharge curve that only LIFEPO4 CELLS offer. 🔋🚲👍
Very interesting, thank you Andy. I will keep an eye on sodium batteries. Voltage Delta is a big problem....
Noch eine gute Video, Grüße aus Deutschland!!!
It would be awesome to see the performance of LTO batteries as there are very few details about them on CZcams .
Thanks for the video and great work !
I have a few LTOs here. They are so expensive that not many will use them. With the high C-rate charging and discharging, they are not really useful for solar applications.
I'll make some videos in the future...
excellent video!!! the biggest possible benefit we can get with this technology, is that when it matures it becomes substantially cheaper than lifepo and proves to be safe for transport and allows less difficulties when it comes to transportation than lifepo, (which falls into the lithium-ion category for most shipments), and so one does not mind losing 20% - 30% of capacity.
I don't know, these are all marketing arguments... Will it ever get cheaper? Who will buy so many cells so they become cheaper if there is this big hardware challenge. Safer? We talked about it in the video.
This is exactly what you can read out there, but without any substance or real world numbers. All this theoretical information. Like solid state batteries🤣
Andy du bist der BESTE
Thanks!
More Tests!
Wery interesting, keep testing , I have to use Sodium Batteries because at this winter I had in My garage -12C. At the moment using Li-ion batteries from Mitshubishi iMiev and they accept charging at -10C. I live in Estonia, near Finland.
Andy, 17s for victron looks much better.
Victron datasheet give us 38v-66v limit.
For 17s it will be 2.23 to 3.88 volt.
Hi Andy, and once again thank you for this very interesting video!!👍
Really, we were able to get information about these Sodium batteries.
A test that would seem very interesting to me is to do exactly the same test but with the same capacity LFP battery!
And charging and discharging power exactly same!
(obviously keeping the basic parameters of an LFP max discharge 2.5V max charge 3.65v) To see and compare the charge and discharge time!! I think it would be interesting, it could tell us at equivalent charging and discharging power what would be the most efficient??👍😉
From personal test on 210Ah sodium-ion battery I find that this cell working fine from 2,5v to 3,75v.
This is the real working range for sodium cells.
For 210Ah cell:
Charging from 3,75v to 3,95v and stop 1A battery absorbed 14Ah.
Under discharge from 3,95v to 3,75v cell deliver 5÷6Ah.
Above 3.8v the cell charges poorly, the voltage is no longer linear but rises in steps.
below 2.5v approximately 38÷42Ah remain, consider that chemists recommend always leaving 20% of residual charge. The end result is that a cell with a capacity of 210Ah, which has the same dimensions as 280Ah LFP, in 3.75v÷2.5v range of use delivers between 138Ah and 142Ah, and a capacity between 430Wh and 460Wh.
Regarding number of cells you can connect in series it is 17S.
You work between 42.5v and 63.75v, therefore falling within the range of your Victron Multiplus 2 inverter.
Test performed on 4 cells, the capacity is always lower than declared.
In my case, sold as 220Ah cells, I found a real capacity between 195Ah and 210Ah.
Internal resistances between 0.23mOhm and 0.40mOhm.
If you charge and discharge them continuously between 1.5v and 3.95v, the prismatic cells tend to show a little belly.
Tests performed with the ZKETECH AL40 like yours.
Identical charging and discharging curves, obtained with 40A both charging and discharging at 20° room temperature.
Bravo Andrea!
Good info, thanks!
That remembers me 20years ago when I scraped the first lithium battery from a military vehicle and had no idea about that chemistry and nothing was to be found anywhere....so very carefully testing is step by step how to deal with it.
Yes, exactly. Very similar with LiFePO4 when I started the channel. Almost no info out there.
Thanks Andy, good job, they didn’t give you a lot to work with data wise.
Doesn’t sound like too many pro’s for the price & expense of new gear to use it, 45oC sounds a bit low for our Aussie climate & the usable power wasn’t great either, maybe useful for outdoor solar lights/ street lights, etc. LifePo4 it is for the win!
A few comments regarding only needing a volt meter to see state of charge, ok for a rough idea but wont indicate current usage & capacity measurements so you know if ur losing battery capacity, I like a good shunt. Cheers
Thanks
That is some voltage working range!! Must be tough for EV manufacturers using sodium ion. Their HV cabling needs to be double the area of lithium battery EVs due to working voltage range. Thats a lot of extra very expensive copper in each car. NMC voltage range is 18.% (3.4V / 4.15V). LFP voltage range is 25% (2.7V / 3.6V). Sodium ion as you tested is 62% (1.5V /3.95V) = 2.5 times the current at low SoC compared to high SoC to deliver the same amount of power. Wow
I guess the battery scientists will come up with some alternate chemistry to fix that issue at some stage. Because the current vo.tage range is unworkable in existing applications, as you point out
Keep up the good work Andy
I guess the one benefit of the wide voltage range is that it should have a big cycle life only using 50-70%. At least as good as lfp. Looking forward to more testing!
And then you have to buy a 1000 cells to have a battery big enough to last through the night lol
Hi Andy,
the "LumenTree feat. Trucki" 600-M/800-M/1000-M/2000-M Grid-Tie Inverters (old versions formerly known as SUN Grid-Tie) can actually use 100% of the capacity, as they have a very wide input voltage range of 22v-65v 😜
Yes, correct. The SUN can do it...
Great Video! A good start to a new voyage of discovery!
How does that charge and discharge curve compare to lead acid batteries? They may be a good replacement for Lead Acid, rather than for a LiFePo4 batteries?
Thanks Andy for the important Sunny and hot garage test. A fire and explosion test would get my vote if such votes were counted, but short term over-current discharge vs temperature as one might encounter in solar applications would be something I'd be interested in
I don't have a climate chamber for such tests to keep them at a stable temperature.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I was thinking more of over 1C discharge tests to at normal temperature to monitor temperature increases
Didn't expect you to get to Sodium batteries this soon. Brilliant.
Given the issues you're having, maybe sodium iron phosphate batteries may be more useful? IE more in line with LiFePO4?
I believe this is the chemistry variant which is thought more suitable for stationary applications?
Never heard about sodium iron phosphate. Nothing like this on the market right now which you can buy. Maybe something in the labs but will take years until they make first production cells. 99.9% of such new and groundbreaking technologies never make it to market.
Interesting! Too much changes necessary to make this batteries work with present equipment, it will be ages before we will wildly use them or its high chance to become forgotten technology 😂 . Keep testing 🎉🎉😊
As an early iteration it is truly amazing to see a battery use such ubiquitous chemistry. All it needs now is a military application and the RnD will go up a million fold. Sad but true. I read The Burning Answer - was deflated by the ineptitude of western governments to invest in research towards sustainable energy. The end result being China totally dominates the production chain globally.
Thanks for your work. A light in the mediocre abyss of most of CZcams's algorithm.
Very nice video Andy as always, so big hype of sodium ion and the price is still too high, and the usable energy storage is well 70% too low... Thank you for this detailed explanation. maybe the 1500ma is to zero volt who knows.
For any static energy storage solution, what actually matters is the total lifetime energy exchange divided by the cost. These batteries will be judged on their ability to absorb and release energy over time for a give installed cost. We moved from NMC to LIPO even though the energy density is significantly worse for the latter simply to leverage the greater cycle life that meant an overall lower cost, ie 4,000x 93% is greater than 2,500 x 100% 🙂
I have some factory 100Ah Sodium Battery packs, 12v and 24v
the inverters can use most of the voltage range generally, lower limit cut off leaves some un-used capacity but very small.
The Soduim specs appear to tollerate far lower and higher temperatures than the LFP - should be good news for Australians, Texans Sudias and Scandinavians alike!
This is very interesting. I still think the flat voltage curve of LFP would be preferable for running 12 V electronics etc (well obviously lol)... Love hearing about new battery technologies. Thanks for taking the dive into sodium. Been wondering about this tech for some time now. I wonder if these can cold crank starters for vehicle engines? Im trying to see the advantage of sodium over LFP. I guess if these can supply very large amounts of cold cranking amps, similar to lead acid they might be a good replacement for starter batteries with their very low temp capabilities and the capability to be drained to 100% with no adverse effects. This would be a huge plus and maybe a market they could take over.
As per the specification, below freezing point they can only be charged and discharged with 0.2C. So, not good for starter batte.... hang on, who still uses starter batteries???
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Oh right haha! I forgot the Tesla is in the other garage. Yes good point on voltage. I wonder if its the same though with that large 12 volt battery on the bench.
It is not just the inverter or charger. Most equipment designed for 12v will give low battery warnings at 10.8V. But on the other hand, that makes the sodium a safe battery if it can handle a wider voltage range than your equipment.
And an expensive one... As you need double the number of batteries as you would with LiFePO4.
When sodium batterys are dirt cheap, just use the voltage range you need and compensate with more batterys.
Inverters with wider voltage range shouldn't be a problem to make, they just need to test and validate existing hardware.
Please remember that the modern restrictions on voltage range is because lithium cells blow up. DC components with a wide range of step up and step down range work fine, although there's always an optimum range.
If these cells are not a fire hazard, I can see even a .5v to 5v range for each cell, meaning that a "12v system" can range from 1.5v to 15, 3v to 30, or 5v to 50. We need to start talking about these as series configurations of maximum voltage, not nominal voltage configurations - like we used to before lithium cells (with their weird curves) became popular.
Curious to see a temperature vs charge curve to see if that bump coincides at all
that was also my thought, but then the bump also appeared on the other way around, as well as the official curves, so I guess it's a sodium thing. Wouldn't be super surprised to find out that getting to this bump actually does some damage, since it surely looks like something changes with the chemistry.
Thank you so much for another amazing video, really appreciated. I just have a question I have 3 separate 11kw inverter in parallel for 3 phase and each has separate lifepo pack. Can I combine and parallel lifepo packs. Thanks
Thanks for your feedback and kind words.
Yes, you can definitely parallel your lifepo banks. I have done it many many times here on the channel and showed how it works. I'm running several packs in parallel myself.
Here are some examples:
czcams.com/video/bhCSccNsQOw/video.html
czcams.com/video/mkelEzVNmIE/video.html
czcams.com/video/Prus1ZE4CNg/video.html
Andy I would love have you on the podcast and talk about this. I have been doing R&D for a sodium Ion manufacturer for almost 12 months now and could share some good insights with you.
Not enough time at the moment, my friend. Maybe one day we can make it work...
Why dont you share some of ur good insights into this tech with comments in this forum so we can all get a better grasp of this tech & maybe you will get some more insight from viewers.
I can't share current information as I have signed Non-Disclosure agreements on the tech. The company I am working with has solved many of the problems Andy talked about. The reality is the sodium cell in this video is tech from 2011. I have the 2014 Tech in My house, and soon, I will have the 2023 Tech. @@evil17
Fascinating. One of the main points about sodium batteries is they’d use more readily available materials while not requiring entirely new production lines. Looks like the second point is taken care of, but do these cells contain nickel and cobalt? I think mass lithium mining is better than artisan cobalt mining, so I’ll probably be sticking to LFP. Or flow batteries, or some sort of molten metal battery.
Hi, new viewer. Thank you for your time and effort. Suggested test: Low voltage cycle torture test. 1.5v-3.5v. Hypothesis: cell would experience maximum heat flux, and might reduce cell life due to anode breakdown. I'm a welder, not a engineer, please educate me if I'm off my rocker here.
Hello, welcome to the channel.
With what current though and how many cycles. 3.5V is not really low voltage any more for these cells?
Puncture test would be interesting to see, never seen one get a hole put in it to see the outcome
I had a solar shop that was handling sodium cells. They were very high on this chemistry and sold many of them but it went very bad for them. Eventually they offered full rebates to all the customers who purchased them.
I really don't know much more than that.
virtually no equipment supports the large voltage curve yet so whoever bought them is not too bright
Yes and the first lithium car batteries burned lots of cars down too. There will be issues but the bottom line is sodium is one of the most PLENTIFUL elements in the world and lithium one of the rarest. end of discussion.
Thanks Andy!
I'd be interested to see a cost comparison between equivalent cells for building a 12v nominal pack and 48v nominal pack.
The energy density seems pretty low compared to lithium ion and lithium iron phosphate cells too.
Also they say they are rated for 3000 cycles to 80% -- that's worse than for lithium iron phosphate, which has 4000 cycles to 95%?
At this point, I agree with you that it seems there is only a niche market for them for use at colder temperatures.
They might be good to use with a grid tie inverter with limiter. The voltage range on mine is 22 to 65 volts
Thanks very much for this comprehensive info. But there is no info about cells DC resistance at 0 - 25 - 50 - 100 % SOC. Resistance and capacity are key features to know, if I would build NIB battery for my PV. Also it si well known fact, that we need use cells at 40 - 60, 30 - 70, 25 - 80 or 20 - 85 % SOC ENERGY, so we can use cells at VOC from 2.4 - 3.9 V, but under load it will be lower , depends on Cx rate of discharge and under charge, it will be higher, depends on temp + resistivity + Cx and also SOH, which means, if battery is old and was stored or used at HIGH SOC and HIGH TEMPS, the SOH parameter is BAD. So if we use battery from 2.25 V to 3.9 V under LOAD, we can use Studer inverter 38 - 68 V range, and 38 / 2.25 === 17 and 3.9 x 17 === 66.3 V, so we will use battery from 25 - 35 % SOC to 85 - 88 % SOC and our battery will be good for a lot of years, if we do not abuse battery at high currents, which means high temps at electrodes, separator and elyt, so proper temps range, proper Cx C/D rate, proper SOC range and we can use this battery pack for 1/2 of our life.
Sodium is exciting. We are testing the commercially available ones you can buy at the end of the year!
Hey Andy, great that you are investigating sodium ion batteries! I noticed in your video that you compare it's charging to LFP, which made me wonder what the actual chemistry is of these cells. Are they not more like NCM rather than LFP? Is it worth investigating sodium if there's still nickel and cobalt in there? Sure hope they are some kind of "NaFP"...
thanks for making the test Andy, it seems like they are not a fit for my off-grid needs.
your numbers shows how they are not really in competition with LiFePO4.
I love the ZKE ab20, brill for repeatable cycle testing, goes up to 17v max charge V so will do 4s lipo.
Yes, best devices ever!
"we make our own curves in here" yea boyy
the low temperature is worse than originally said, hopefully it stays there or gets better. lifepo4 even suggested charges at those temperatures when it first came out 20 years ago then they realized it isn't good
The Ingeteam Ingecon Sun Storage 1Play 6TL M inverter has a voltage range for batteries from 40V to 450V. Full capacity can be used in sodium batteries.
I reckon when the sodium chemistry is more widespread then charger and inverter manufactures will include the suitable parameters, maybe even fireware (firmware) updates for existing units if hardware supports. Interesting curve on them.
Endlich mal wieder Grundlagenforschung.
Yes, with more to come💪
Ausiman starts fire with salt battery tests🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Hahaha, yeah something like this....😄
*So I have a Samlex SA1500 that I bought for my Off Grid solar to run off Alum batteries. My org intent and currently is to run off other lead acid cells because with the ALum conversion that was a flop as they did not maintain a sufficient current to make this worthwhile, however the inverter (along with 5 others remain, The SA-1500 at 12v [12v due to alternator tie in] has a range of 9.5v - 17.1v So with this version you would certainly be able to avail yourself more of the full range.*
*I'm looking to upgrade to Sodium Ion's for travel since I dislike Lithium's thermal runaway inclinations. But mainly the BMS part. because I have been using 18650's in my bike light for some 9 years in a variety of temps) My interest would be at what voltage point the Sodium Ions have a cut off point by not being able to run a resistive load like even a soft start cap Frigidaire 5k btu Window AC unit because in my tests the LA's as well as the Lithium were at around 65% in my battery bank.*
*Creds: over 7k mono crystalline solar panels, 3 Midnite Classic 150's, 5 Samlex Pure Sine Inverters 300, 600, 1500, 2, 2000 and 1 3000 (+ a 24yo 1500 watt Modified Sine and along a 750 and some smaller ones too) with 1 Go power 3000 I use with my Welder. Noctua cooling fans throughout. 4/0 copper welding cables with 60/40 Kester Solder and tinned copper lugs. 2 IOTA dls 90 and a 45, power supplies and also a 100 amp Powermax 220 version (for travel using unused J1772 EV chargers) Again Noctua PWM fans throughout the entire system. Makes a huge difference in alleviating noise pollution. Currently about 1500Ah battery bank)*
Hi Andy,
I recently saw a video here on CZcams of somebody building a sodium ion battery for a pre built camper system.
They used Victron DC -> DC converters to make sure the inverter could keep working even if the battery gets below a certain voltage.
I'd like to know if that is the way to go when working with sodium batteries.
That's definitely not a solution but just a workaround.
Looking forward to the first 15S/16S build 🙂. Thanks!
What for? You get a voltage range of 22,5V to 59,25V. No existing electronic device can handle such large voltage range. And if you plug a buck/boost converter in front you loose about 25-30%. Na+ just makes no sense. Only in very cold climate whetre you must overcome the electric deficiencies with much more expensive high power electronics.
@@wolfgangpreier9160Because of what mining Lithium does for the environment. I see it here in Portugal.
@@marcelvanlieshout3508 So you say we should use the oil that your oil companies steal from the poor negroes and burn it in your Seat?
I do not.
BTW: We have a lithum mine that is being exploitet by Saudis here in Austria because nobody wanted to dirty their hands.
They dig the raw material out of the rock, transport it with stinking polluting posionong Diesel trucks to the sea. Then with stinking, more polluting, more posioning Diesel ships to Saudi Arabia whee it will be refined and transformed into Lithoum Hydroxide to be transported with stinking and sea life destroying Diesel ships to Europe to be put into batteries for your future Cupra Born.
All because nobody wanted to dirty their hands and make everything locally.
You say stop using clean energy in our cars and continue burning fossil ressources.
I say stop transporting everything across half the world just because you do not want to have a dirty backyard.
There will be no 16s battery build with Sodium batteries, sorry.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Don't be sorry. I am grateful for anything we can learn from you.
Great video!
Have you had a look at the 40 or 45 Ah lithium-titanium-oxide (LTO) batteries? They can also be charged at sub zero and have a massive current capability, including fast charging due to some "magic" about the chemistry apparantly. Nominal voltage is only 2.3v and they have an upper limit of 2.8v but discharge cutoff is 1.5v. Here they are also different in that they do not take much damage from 0v discharge if done at lower currents. Otherwise they can do 10C charging and discharging! Very interesting!
I have LTOs here. Fast charging is not really something we look at with solar installations, do we?
I wonder why they didn't install them in EVs if they are so good...?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Energy density is half of lithium...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia For solar lights and such the LTO's may be worth it though, as they can be charged when sub zero. This is important as it's starting to become the primary failure point of solar driven street lighting in colder countrys.
That flat charge/discharge curve is inherent with Lithium, even the older, primary cell ones dating back to the '80s had pretty flat curves.
So far, I haven't seen a curve like that outside of lithium chemistry
Northvolt - the exclusive supplier of batteries to mining equipment major Epiroc, as well as a major partner of Volvo Group, has added sodium-ion to its cell portfolio, it says enabling the expansion of cost-efficient and sustainable energy storage systems worldwide.
> 18:56 we don't know if sodium batteries are getting stressed as well as lithium batteries
one said sodium atoms are lager then lithium, thus it's harder to pack them into the graphite crystal lattice. thus we can assume that sodium atoms are more likely to destroy it
and sodium life cycles (3000) compared to lifepo4 (6000-8000) seems to hint, who is more dependent on stress
Interesting results. I am already thinking about building a Sodium-Ion solar setup for the unheated garden shed which often goes below 0 celcius.
Not sure about the low voltage range, but losing some usable capacity does not seem to bother most people with NMC car batteries.
If I remember this right you should not charge above 80% with NMC and not touch the bottom 30% in case of very cold weather.
Or am I just trying too hard to see the good side of Sodium-Ion ?
Sodium biggest advantage is price. In 5-10 years when they are made at large scale they will get very cheap.