sodium

Hardware

Unigrid Aims to Reduce Cost and Enhance Safety of Batteries through Sodium Technology

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The most widespread type of battery, lithium-ion, still costs around $140 per kilowatt-hour for a pack. Instead, manufacturers have started to explore sodium-ion batteries, not as a replacement, but as a complement to lithium-ion. To deliver that many batteries, Unigrid isn’t going to be building its own factories. Small vehicles like these are popular in India and Southeast Asia, where the intense heat can make lithium-ion batteries prone to overheating. To get its sodium-ion batteries into production, Unigrid has raised a $12 million Series A.

Ava Patel
June 13, 2024
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Startups

“Breaking the Cycle: Aepnus’ Vision for a Sustainable Battery Industry”

Wastewater from these plants emerges laden with sodium sulfate, a byproduct of sulfuric acid and caustic soda, two chemicals used in battery manufacturing, copper refining and other industries. “We can totally create a circular economy around these reagent chemicals,” Bilen Akuzum, co-founder and CTO of Aepnus Technology, told TechCrunch. The two founded Aepnus to modernize the century-old chloralkali process, which splits salts like sodium sulfate back into the acids and bases that created them. “We don’t use any expensive catalysts in our electrolyzers,” Akuzum said. For customers, fully recycling sodium sulfate waste should reduce disposal and material costs.