Purdue University uses "sodium powder" to develop high-performance button battery 2025

Most of today's batteries use rare lithium mined from the mountains of South America. If this source of lithium is exhausted, then battery production may stagnate. Sodium is a cheap and abundant alternative to lithium in batteries. But if sodium is exposed to water, even if it is just water in the air, sodium will turn purple and flammable.

Currently, in order to make button battery 2025 function like lithium-ion batteries, researchers around the world have successfully controlled sodium's explosive tendencies, but have not yet solved the problem of sodium ions "losing" during the initial charge and discharge of button battery 2025. Now, Purdue University researchers have developed a sodium powder that can solve the above problems and correctly control the charge.

Vilas Pol, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University, said that adding sodium powder during electrode processing only requires slight modifications to the battery production process. This is a potential way to advance sodium-ion battery technology to the industry. The researchers published their scientific research results in the journal "Power Sources".

Although button battery 2025 are physically heavier than lithium-ion batteries, researchers have been studying them because they have the potential to store energy generated by large solar and wind power facilities at a lower cost. The problem is that sodium ions tend to cling to the carbon-based anode in the battery during the initial charging cycle, preventing the ions from migrating to the cathode. These ions accumulate into a structure called a "solid electrolyte interface."

"Normally, a solid electrolyte interface is good because it protects the carbon particles from the battery's acidic electrolyte," Pol said. "But too much of the interface consumes the sodium ions needed to charge the battery."

The Purdue researchers suggest using a sodium powder that provides the solid electrolyte interface with the amount of sodium needed to protect the anode but does not accumulate in a way that consumes the sodium ions.

They made the sodium powder in an argon-filled glove box to minimize exposing the sodium to moisture, which reduces burning. They used ultrasound to melt the sodium chunks, forming a milky purple liquid, which was then cooled into a powder and then suspended in a hexane solution to evenly disperse the powder particles.

Just a few drops of a sodium suspension on the anode or cathode during the manufacturing process allow button battery 2025 to charge and discharge with greater stability and higher capacity, the minimum requirements for a functional battery.

Read recommendations:

18650 2600mAh 3.7V

The Birth of New Lithium Silicon Batteries: Mobile Phone Power May Increase by Over 30%.18650 rechar

Application of Square Lithium Batteries in Energy Storage Power Stations

18650 battery 1800 mah

9V USB 1.5V 1000mWh