CATL announcement this week underscores opportunity for the UK to take a leading role in battery technology
27 MAY 2021: Faradion welcomes the announcement from Chinese battery manufacturer CATL that it will start manufacturing sodium-ion batteries later this year. The announcement underscores the importance of sodium-ion technology as an integral part of a world beyond lithium.
This is a necessary transition: lithium-ion batteries used predominantly in EVs contain lithium, cobalt and copper, and in stationary energy storage lithium and copper. These are expensive raw materials and their mining leads to adverse environmental impacts. Lithium has also become constrained due to restricted availability and increased prices.
Faradion, a UK-based company (Sheffield, England) is commercialising sodium-ion technology which provides similar performance to conventional lithium chemistries while avoiding use of expensive materials such as cobalt and replacing lithium with the more sustainable and abundant sodium while giving better safety and thermal stability. Faradion’s proprietary technology delivers leading-edge, cost effective solutions for a broad range of applications, including mobility, energy storage, back-up power and energy in remote locations.
Faradion’s batteries already boast performance as good as Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries at 150-160 Wh/kg. Sodium is one of the most abundant elements in the world, and not only are sodium-ion batteries more sustainable than Lithium, but they will be lower cost and safer.
The growing interest in sustainable next-generation battery technology underscores an opportunity for the UK to take a leading role in this industry. It could establish large-scale domestic manufacturing with additional economic benefits also from downstream applications. This should give UK companies a foot-in-the-door of the international battery market, opening up substantial new markets, generating jobs and significant economic value for the UK.
