Sodium-Ion Battery

A sodium ion battery is a rechargeable battery that uses sodium ions rather than lithium ions as its charge carrier, built on largely the same intercalation principle as a lithium ion battery but substituting sodium, which sits in the same group of the periodic table as lithium and shares many of its chemical properties. Sodium ion chemistry was first explored in the 1970s and 1980s, lost ground through the 1990s as lithium ion batteries proved more commercially promising, and saw renewed research from the early 2010s onward as lithium costs rose and its supply proved geographically concentrated; the first sodium ion cell using a hard carbon anode was demonstrated in 2003. China commissioned a 5 megawatt, 10 megawatt hour sodium ion grid battery in 2023, and the Chinese manufacturer Yadea now sells electric scooters built on sodium ion packs. As of 2025 sodium ion battery packs still cost roughly 30 percent more than comparable lithium iron phosphate batteries, but the chemistry reliance on abundant, low cost sodium rather than scarce lithium continues to drive commercial interest.