A room-temperature sodium–sulfur battery with high capacity and
High-temperature sodium–sulfur batteries operating at 300–350 °C have been commercially applied for large-scale energy storage and conversion.
A sodium–sulfur (NaS) battery is a type of molten-salt battery that uses liquid sodium and liquid sulfur electrodes. This type of battery has a similar energy density to lithium-ion batteries, and is fabricated from inexpensive and low-toxicity materials.
Despite their very low capital cost and high energy density (300-400 Wh/L), molten sodium–sulfur batteries have not achieved a wide-scale deployment yet compared to lithium-ion batteries: there have been ca. 200 installations, with a combined energy of 5 GWh and power of 0.72 GW, worldwide. vs. 948 GWh for lithium-ion batteries.
Like many high-temperature batteries, sodium–sulfur cells become more economical with increasing size. This is because of the square–cube law: large cells have less relative heat loss, so maintaining their high operating temperatures is easier. Commercially available cells are typically large with high capacities (up to 500 Ah).
Nature Communications 9, Article number: 3870 (2018) Cite this article High-temperature sodium–sulfur batteries operating at 300–350 °C have been commercially applied for large-scale energy storage and conversion. However, the safety concerns greatly inhibit their widespread adoption.
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