Two years ago, sodium-ion battery pioneer Natron Energy was busy preparing its specially formulated sodium batteries for mass production. The company slipped a little past its 2023 kickoff plans, but it didn't fall too far behind as far as mass battery production goes. It officially commenced…
Can you elaborate on that? I was just reading the data sheet for these batteries, and these are tested with a ballistic penetration test, resulting in no fire.
I’m presuming this concern is from watching videos of elemental sodium reacting with water, which stands to reason, but I’ve not heard of exploding batteries
Just my impression on seeing videos of these tests on videos, which seem to result in the battery exploding violently and essentially escaping any attempt at confinement instead of catching fire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ya_ls1zkA
That’s way less extreme than I would’ve expected.
What were you expecting? It’s literally an explosion. Add a few thousand of them in row in EV battery style if you want a bigger explosion.
Interesting. I wonder how that compares to a similar Li-ion cell. Also it’s a shame there wasn’t a close-up on the markings of the battery in that video to know what it is exactly. I don’t imagine all cells are equal.
The battery packs from the article, for instance, are not constructed from cylindrical cells, but from large thin and flat square cells. The cathode material appears to be unique as well, as far as I can tell; who knows what’s in those blue cylindrical cells.
You can look at other videos in his channel that answer your doubts. 18650 battery cells are usually connected together into battery packs and BMS, and the industrial process is pretty standardized. Just like Li-ion you can have different cell structures, but the inside remains the same.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=W1ya_ls1zkA
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No fire could have occured during the penetration test because the resulting explosion removed all oxygen from the surrounding environment. -s