diy solar

diy solar

sodium-ion batteries .....

You hit the nail on the Head:
US Manufacture: Union Run, Osha Restricted, Taxed into Mediocrity, Ect.
Chinese Manufacture: Lets make some batteries...
The flip side of that coin is...
Chinese Manufacturer: What do we do with the Chemical byproducts? Oh yeah there is a river nearby!
Chinese Manufacturer HR: Are these Chemicals safe to breath in? Yeah so long as the staff are told it is!

America has already gone down this road from the 1940s to the 1980s, we know what happens when companies are given a blank check. Go visit Beijing and come back and tell me if you would want to live there.
Even showering with the tap water is a risk and yeah that fresh 2 packs a day of Cigarette quality air will do wonders for your lungs. Even China is moving away from these kinds of hasty practices, why would we want to start to embrace them again?
 
The issue will be that US manufacturing will stand around trying to figure out how to be politically correct while the Chinese companies will hit the ground running hard on making these sodium batteries ... the trick will be though especially for CATL to be able to sell the Sodium's without destroying the LiFePO4 market and ride that LFP market out as far as it can go ....

LiFePO4 will never go away -- ppl still will want the density and the longevity ...

BUT the good thing is that you will see sodium batteries come in at the same price as LiFePO4 batteries and then BOTH will fall dramatically as a race to the bottom in pricing ...

CATL and EVE will still be the world leaders and making billions and the US companies will still be trying to remember which colour is on top for the Diversity flag being flown ...
Excellent summary.
 
I have been playing around with sodium-ion battery's as well , very similar to the salt battery's I have buried in the ground inside 90mm stormwater pipes with carbon anode + Manganese cathode rolled over stainless steel mesh collector
as I am not too concerned with storage space or capacity , can always post hole drill more holes and sink more pipes into the ground think it was only ~$100 per cell to make
they do seem to have pretty good charge / discharge cycles and have not noticed a capacity change over the last few years , tho mine are under light loads 1kw 30A 48v solar charger running 100w air pumps 24/7 and 26x banks

looking over the logs it looks like the average bank does 600w /10A charge while the best one averages 800w 15A charge no idea what the difference might be but it was the 3rd bank I made , long since lost all the mix rates I used

I do over 50% discharge daily and still going , tho others have been telling me to just compress the air as storage instead ... as most of the energy does only run my aerators ~5000lpm and a compressor to keep up would just cost too , also I do still use excess solar power to run heaters and the electronics running all the automation of the aquaponic setup so I do still need electrical storage

it all comes down to what you want to use as an electrode , personally I just want something that can be setup and never replaced again in my life time like NiFe
 
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I have been playing around with sodium-ion battery's as well , very similar to the salt battery's I have buried in the ground inside 90mm stormwater pipes with carbon anode + Manganese cathode rolled over stainless steel mesh collector
as I am not too concerned with storage space or capacity , can always post hole drill more holes and sink more pipes into the ground think it was only ~$100 per cell to make
they do seem to have pretty good charge / discharge cycles and have not noticed a capacity change over the last few years , tho mine are under light loads 1kw 30A 48v solar charger running 100w air pumps 24/7 and 26x banks

looking over the logs it looks like the average bank does 600w /10A charge while the best one averages 800w 15A charge no idea what the difference might be but it was the 3rd bank I made , long since lost all the mix rates I used

I do over 50% discharge daily and still going , tho others have been telling me to just compress the air as storage instead ... as most of the energy does only run my aerators ~5000lpm and a compressor to keep up would just cost too , also I do still use excess solar power to run heaters and the electronics running all the automation of the aquaponic setup so I do still need electrical storage

it all comes down to what you want to use as an electrode , personally I just want something that can be setup and never replaced again in my life time like NiFe
You mean you made Sodium ion batteries ? Or you bought and assembled them?
 
The world needs higher energy density and smaller firm factor. While thus Sodium battery might be good for stationary installations, it really does nothing for automobiles, motorcycles, etc. For example, to make motorcycles... or truck towing... truly feasible, we need about 4x the current energy density at the current size. Sodium really doesn't cut it.
 
You mean you made Sodium ion batteries ? Or you bought and assembled them?
they are the most basic battery you can make hell just a cotton insulator is all that is needed
(I work at a textile plant)
I just used powders for making mine , sprinkled over the insulators layers sewn up and rolled into pipes and I have closed loop air being injected down the bottom to keep the salt mixture being stirred up so no solids form down the bottom entire battery banks are literally almost 60m wide (setup along my fence line with solar panels ontop of them )
think each cell was 12kg and each bank almost half a ton pretty sure they were 2m Long/deep , as learnt my lesson doing the 6m long ones , as they were impossible to get back out of the ground without breaking and rolling up the electrodes was hell

but you can easily buy foam electrode foils quite cheaply to make your own sodium is easy to get
Graphene seems to be the go to electrode these days Low grade ~$75 / kg High Grade ~$300 /kg
and apparently mine that was made from carbon powder are now over a decade old first one made in 2009 last one built 2013
I believe the newer ones had fluorine added

the issue with them is the low C-rates
the pro's is you can heat them no issues

the best thing about patents is you can see how things are made and DIY , your just not allowed to sell , nothing stopping you building
jiguang zhang's patents can make good reads , the best electrolyte so far seems to be their HC|NaNMC cells containing Fluor Sulfonyl , 2,2,2-Trifluoroethyl holding over 4.2v after hundreds of cycles



mine are a lot lower voltage per cell but I was choosing the cheapest way to make them , looks like everyone is just trying to make them compatible with lithium tech

I am still deciding if I will make flow batteries next as getting the membrane is hard to source but increasing the capacity will be easy as it just goes into storage tanks

cheap sodium batterys are great for stationary installations and the more expensive ones using micron thick electrodes will be safer to have in phones .. no more swelling and fires in your pockets they even have voltages darn close to lithium now so it could be possible to mix
 
they are the most basic battery you can make hell just a cotton insulator is all that is needed
(I work at a textile plant)
I just used powders for making mine , sprinkled over the insulators layers sewn up and rolled into pipes and I have closed loop air being injected down the bottom to keep the salt mixture being stirred up so no solids form down the bottom entire battery banks are literally almost 60m wide (setup along my fence line with solar panels ontop of them )
think each cell was 12kg and each bank almost half a ton pretty sure they were 2m Long/deep , as learnt my lesson doing the 6m long ones , as they were impossible to get back out of the ground without breaking and rolling up the electrodes was hell

but you can easily buy foam electrode foils quite cheaply to make your own sodium is easy to get
Graphene seems to be the go to electrode these days Low grade ~$75 / kg High Grade ~$300 /kg
and apparently mine that was made from carbon powder are now over a decade old first one made in 2009 last one built 2013
I believe the newer ones had fluorine added

the issue with them is the low C-rates
the pro's is you can heat them no issues

the best thing about patents is you can see how things are made and DIY , your just not allowed to sell , nothing stopping you building
jiguang zhang's patents can make good reads , the best electrolyte so far seems to be their HC|NaNMC cells containing Fluor Sulfonyl , 2,2,2-Trifluoroethyl holding over 4.2v after hundreds of cycles



mine are a lot lower voltage per cell but I was choosing the cheapest way to make them , looks like everyone is just trying to make them compatible with lithium tech

I am still deciding if I will make flow batteries next as getting the membrane is hard to source but increasing the capacity will be easy as it just goes into storage tanks

cheap sodium batterys are great for stationary installations and the more expensive ones using micron thick electrodes will be safer to have in phones .. no more swelling and fires in your pockets they even have voltages darn close to lithium now so it could be possible to mix
Wow I'm elated to hear you've been successful at this, I have been searching for DIY ways to make Sodium ion batteries as required resources are much more available, please if you could share your process for making the batteries safety it would help a lot of people needing this information,(Especially newbies like myself).
 
they are the most basic battery you can make hell just a cotton insulator is all that is needed
(I work at a textile plant)
I just used powders for making mine , sprinkled over the insulators layers sewn up and rolled into pipes and I have closed loop air being injected down the bottom to keep the salt mixture being stirred up so no solids form down the bottom entire battery banks are literally almost 60m wide (setup along my fence line with solar panels ontop of them )
think each cell was 12kg and each bank almost half a ton pretty sure they were 2m Long/deep , as learnt my lesson doing the 6m long ones , as they were impossible to get back out of the ground without breaking and rolling up the electrodes was hell

but you can easily buy foam electrode foils quite cheaply to make your own sodium is easy to get
Graphene seems to be the go to electrode these days Low grade ~$75 / kg High Grade ~$300 /kg
and apparently mine that was made from carbon powder are now over a decade old first one made in 2009 last one built 2013
I believe the newer ones had fluorine added

the issue with them is the low C-rates
the pro's is you can heat them no issues

the best thing about patents is you can see how things are made and DIY , your just not allowed to sell , nothing stopping you building
jiguang zhang's patents can make good reads , the best electrolyte so far seems to be their HC|NaNMC cells containing Fluor Sulfonyl , 2,2,2-Trifluoroethyl holding over 4.2v after hundreds of cycles



mine are a lot lower voltage per cell but I was choosing the cheapest way to make them , looks like everyone is just trying to make them compatible with lithium tech

I am still deciding if I will make flow batteries next as getting the membrane is hard to source but increasing the capacity will be easy as it just goes into storage tanks

cheap sodium batterys are great for stationary installations and the more expensive ones using micron thick electrodes will be safer to have in phones .. no more swelling and fires in your pockets they even have voltages darn close to lithium now so it could be possible to mix
I could definitely hear some more about this. How much did you cycle them?

Honesty in my case for stationary solar, I don’t give a rats ass how light or small the cell is or even if it’s capable of a really fast c rate for charge or discharge. Only that it has a high cycle and calendar life, it’s cheap and fairly easy to maintain. If it could charge at a c/20 rate or discharge at a c/20 rate that’s fine.

I would gladly trade everything a lithium battery does for pure longevity.
 
look at this pdf at the end of page 3, start of 4. with this module all the cells are wired in series and the best system use is for 500 volts out.
look at how easy it would be to re-wire the ten cells in parallel for 48volts. each cell has it's own bms. does that mean you have to have a
master bms for ten cells? this system would have 25kwh at the 48v parallel wiring. If we take EG4 cheap batteries at 48v 100ah 5.1 kwh for
$1700 plus shipping and any sales tax; then 2.5 x $1700 = $4250 So that would be a comparable price for LFP, but sodium ion ought to be
about 80% of that -- $3400 plus shipping and tax
 
Will be interesting to see what battery technoogies come about, over the next ten or so years. Meanwhile I bet many of us on this forum figure, well I already have the storage I need for now, with LiFePO4 and am good for 4-6000 cycles, so I will watch and see what new tech comes along, and at what price, so I can plan for replacing the LiFePO4 over the next decade, when price and performance make it attractive and cycles start adding up on the existing systems. Like a lot of new tech, people will want to see how well new the batteries actually perform, over a period of a few years before making a change.
 
Will be interesting to see what battery technoogies come about, over the next ten or so years. Meanwhile I bet many of us on this forum figure, well I already have the storage I need for now, with LiFePO4 and am good for 4-6000 cycles, so I will watch and see what new tech comes along, and at what price, so I can plan for replacing the LiFePO4 over the next decade, when price and performance make it attractive and cycles start adding up on the existing systems. Like a lot of new tech, people will want to see how well new the batteries actually perform, over a period of a few years before making a change.
Keep in mind this exact scenario was playing out over a decade ago when i bought my first LiFePO4. They are still clearly the best choice for residential off-grid, and i wouldn’t be at all surprised if this still isn’t the case in 2033.
 
The flip side of that coin is...
Chinese Manufacturer: What do we do with the Chemical byproducts? Oh yeah there is a river nearby!
Chinese Manufacturer HR: Are these Chemicals safe to breath in? Yeah so long as the staff are told it is!

America has already gone down this road from the 1940s to the 1980s, we know what happens when companies are given a blank check. Go visit Beijing and come back and tell me if you would want to live there.
Even showering with the tap water is a risk and yeah that fresh 2 packs a day of Cigarette quality air will do wonders for your lungs. Even China is moving away from these kinds of hasty practices, why would we want to start to embrace them again?
I wouldn’t want to but it’s not just OSHA.
American Manufacturing is non existent.
Anyone who knew how to manufacture on a large scale is now dead.

The taxes and unions are another thing. Why would you manufacture here when you have an employee with zero experience wanting huge sums to stand and screw On a bolt or when you do finally make a $ the government has their hand out?

At least the Chinese Government doesn’t tax their business to death. They even give them
Money to start up.

They also have a large population that will work for a lot less than Americans.
Same in any country.

Only way to make American products compete is with a Tarrif.
The Japanese did it for 50 years.

Unfortunately if we design and start making anything here the Chinese just buy it then reverse engineer it then sell it for half as much.

There’s a reason ITAR exist.

I’m waiting for all our gear that got left in Afghanistan to appear on Holosun website.
 
People make a lot of assumptions without checking: a few that catch my attention:
Unions - only about 8% of US manufacturing is actually Union, mostly in the Auto sector. look it up.
Pay - typical monthly pay in Chinese manufacturing is a few hundred dollars/month. Imagine working for 1$ per hour. Now imagine competing with it.
A robot on an assembly line is not paid. It also does not purchase any product produced by the assembly line, nor pay taxes.
Before Nixon, China didn't make much. A lot of the start up money and technology came from US/Western nations. And consumers Ran to the store to buy those cheap products. They didn't have too.
Tax cuts for corporations will lead to more investment and jobs - it may, but doesn't garantee that investment will be in the same country as the cuts.
Tariffs - these are costs added to the consumer, by their own government, not to the manufacturer, they are inflationary.
Chinese copies of patented products: We don't have to allow it. We chose to, or not.
Consumers don't 'have to' buy the cheapest product, they can purchase a locally made one even if it costs more, or not, but it is a choice.
"Everything is made in China" - Where was your last car/pickup built? How about most of the items your home is made from.
Environmental - Western nations could get together and insist on changes, or boycot products, we chose to, or not. Sim to RoHS standards. To be effective, all the consumer-nations chould agree to a fixed set of requirements (environmetal/human rights/etc) and then stick to them. Rather than looking for advanage over each other by allowing loop-holes. But long term planning and thinking is not supported well in a system with 4-year leadership.
People would do well to recall how we got here, over the last 60 odd years, and what behaviour encouraged it.
 
I'm not convinced the new sodium batteries are going to be the next bestest thing, especially since the cathode uses nickle, which is in much more scarcity than the other components required for LiFePo4.

 
very interesting times to be involved in solar and battery tech, with the pushing green agenda and the cutting of ICE, this will only fuel the investment further speeding up its development!
 
I have been playing around with sodium-ion battery's as well , very similar to the salt battery's I have buried in the ground inside 90mm stormwater pipes with carbon anode + Manganese cathode rolled over stainless steel mesh collector
as I am not too concerned with storage space or capacity , can always post hole drill more holes and sink more pipes into the ground think it was only ~$100 per cell to make
they do seem to have pretty good charge / discharge cycles and have not noticed a capacity change over the last few years , tho mine are under light loads 1kw 30A 48v solar charger running 100w air pumps 24/7 and 26x banks

looking over the logs it looks like the average bank does 600w /10A charge while the best one averages 800w 15A charge no idea what the difference might be but it was the 3rd bank I made , long since lost all the mix rates I used

I do over 50% discharge daily and still going , tho others have been telling me to just compress the air as storage instead ... as most of the energy does only run my aerators ~5000lpm and a compressor to keep up would just cost too , also I do still use excess solar power to run heaters and the electronics running all the automation of the aquaponic setup so I do still need electrical storage

it all comes down to what you want to use as an electrode , personally I just want something that can be setup and never replaced again in my life time like NiFe

Can you explain more about your process? As far as I unterstand your explanation, you built your one Salt battery?

According to the the informations on your post, your battery exists out of:
  • Salt​

  • MnO2?​

  • Carbon​

I did some research and found this:

What salt would be best, I found Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) or sodium sulfate?

Any one have a idea?
 
Consumers don't 'have to' buy the cheapest product, they can purchase a locally made one even if it costs more, or not, but it is a choice
Could you run out and get me a locally made Tv? Or microwave? How about a new motherboard and some RAM for my computer?

There are also many MANY times where the "Made in America" tag is just too big a pill to swallow. If I can pay 10-20% more for something made here, totally worth it (and I do try) but when I have to pay 200-500% more for that same label and it's only "assembled" here? Well, I gotta eat too.

But, back to the topic at hand, the energy density should get to par within 3-5 years once they start not just hitting the market, but when there is a major player (say Hyundai or VW for example) that says they're wanting to use them in their new model Ioniquensteinenflappen SUV that's going to spur a LOT of forward movement.

I Do wonder about the cell specifics as far as voltages and such. We already have to get BMS's for LiIon or LFP because the cells aren't the same, will JBD and Daly start coming out with Sodium BMS's too? That's going to be another line of development to work out to make it viable.

I'm a little excited. I remember when the "Next Big Thing" were the stackable salt water batteries until the company making them was bought out and folded.

As for making them in the USA, we've got a LOT of salt water coastline that makes raw materials a bit easier to come by. As long as the pill isn't too hard to swallow I'd spend the extra.
 
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