A surprising breakthrough could help sodium-ion batteries rival lithium—and even turn seawater into drinking water. Scientists discovered that keeping water inside a key battery material, instead of removing it as traditionally done, dramatically boosts performance. The “wet” version stores nearly twice as much charge, charges faster, and remains stable for hundreds of cycles, placing it among the top-performing sodium battery materials ever reported.
Sodium-ion batteries are not hype though, they are in production use in multiple industries already. They are generally superior to Lithium based batteries in all regards, with the exception of having a bit lower energy density. An equivalent LiFePO4 battery might be 70-80% of the size for the same storage. It’s not a big deal for large applications like cars and solar storage.
Cool.