Many years ago there was an attempt to make a commercially viable sodium ion battery but at that time there was not enough financial interest in the technology and it fell by the wayside.

It seems that is about to change.

 

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/03/26/the-weekend-read-sodium-ion-batteries-go-mainstream/

 

Hopefully by the time I need to replace my lead acid Gel batteries these will be available with a good enough price/performance comparison with lithium.

I was looking forward to the introduction of the solid state lithium batteries but sodium should be a less costly solution with more environmentally friendly materials and production.

I really have trouble keeping up with the "sodium" batteries. These are apparently closer to Aquion's "saltwater" battery rather than the sodium-nickel telecom battery or the high temperature sodium sulphur grid storage batteries. 

Batteries keep improving, but do not expect having a look at Lazada or Shopee and just order any time soon. Things like this take time, time to do more testing, after time for making production sides, time to get them to full speed production. Do not expect it to be anywhere visible in the market within 5y, 10y is much more probable and that is if the research is fully done, and the building phase has started. Expect also the price to be high at the start, new buildings/research need to be payed, which takes another 2-3 years before it gets really in the consumer market .

10 hours ago, sezze said:

Batteries keep improving, but do not expect having a look at Lazada or Shopee and just order any time soon. Things like this take time, time to do more testing, after time for making production sides, time to get them to full speed production. Do not expect it to be anywhere visible in the market within 5y, 10y is much more probable and that is if the research is fully done, and the building phase has started. Expect also the price to be high at the start, new buildings/research need to be payed, which takes another 2-3 years before it gets really in the consumer market .

You make good and very valid points with which I agree. 

It may interest you to know that salt water batteries are already available.

https://www.bluesky-energy.eu/en/greenrock-home-2/ and there may be others.

It is early days yet so, as you say, the price is probably beyond my pocket but I will be keeping a look out for these batteries for the future.

Note there was a company in Pittsburgh about six years ago called Aquion who made salt water batteries. They went bankrupt due to misguided business decisions. The company was put up for auction and one of the unsuccessful bidders was Bluesky in Australia. They clearly believed in the potential of salt water batteries.

 

3 hours ago, Muhendis said:

You make good and very valid points with which I agree. 

It may interest you to know that salt water batteries are already available.

https://www.bluesky-energy.eu/en/greenrock-home-2/ and there may be others.

It is early days yet so, as you say, the price is probably beyond my pocket but I will be keeping a look out for these batteries for the future.

Note there was a company in Pittsburgh about six years ago called Aquion who made salt water batteries. They went bankrupt due to misguided business decisions. The company was put up for auction and one of the unsuccessful bidders was Bluesky in Australia. They clearly believed in the potential of salt water batteries.

 

I did read about those batteries before , but check here...

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/15/low-cost-saltwater-battery-wins-500000-award.html

That is from 2015 . We are now 2022 and there are not a lot of companies making them . In a market which has gained huge market share , batteries are in big demand . Might be bad business decisions and all , but basically the tech is quite simple so many others could by now have gone in that direction also . Thinking about Chinese companies which are now the big companies for making batteries , simple technology , not much to do wrong and safe , a prime market for any low budget producer . And still after 7y , "not much" has happened .

Translate this to the other new battery technologies which are being "discovered and/or tested" and are supposed to be ready for production . A decade moves along fast , translating something from lab scale to industrial scale production just takes time .

btw there are others around the corner also , like solid state batteries , carbon air batteries , ...