In a statement, Northvolt says its validated cell is more safe, cost-effective, and sustainable than conventional nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC) or iron phosphate (LFP) chemistries and is produced with minerals such as iron and sodium that are abundant on global markets.
It is based on a hard carbon anode and a Prussian White-based cathode, and is free from lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite. Leveraging a breakthrough in battery design and manufacturing, Northvolt plans to be the first to industrialize Prussian White-based batteries and bring them to commercial markets.
Reports across the web also say the technology enables the supply chain to become ecologically more sustainable, cheaper, abd less dependent on China.
Isn’t Prussian white super rare too?
Time to put my chemistry to use for something other than covering up the ugly spot in the wallpaper!
Prussian white isn’t really a thing a thing you dig up, it’s a thing you make in a lab or a factory. The nice thing is that you can make it from basic components and basically at room temperatures It’s just sodium, iron, carbon, nitrogen and manganese. Those are incredibly common elements and easy to find anywhere on earth.
Synthesis probably involves some solvents and acids, but nothing overly dangerous. You can make this stuff in a very basic lab with moderately basic precursors.
(although industrial size synthesis is very different from what people publish papers on, so take all this with a grain of salt)
What do you mean, I cannot just buy a 1000 gallon beaker and pour stuff in?! My childhood was a lie.
A surprisingly large number of “chemical reactors” are literally that, but with metal instead of glass beakers.
Yea, but they’re WAY more complex than a giant beaker and if it’s an exothermic reaction, they basically always take extra, cooling and all sorts of control mechanisms, too. By saying, “but they basically are” is very specifically ignoring every single detail about the entire point.
It IS NOT like a giant beaker precisely because it needs all of the extra stuff on top of a giant container.
It’s a natrium-iron cyanide salt. Probably poisonous, not any harder to produce than any other industrial chemical, as long as you automate the process.
Iron, carbon, and nitrogen? It’s been produced for hundreds of years.
Maybe it’s not easy to produce, but Na2Fe[Fe(CN)6] doesn’t seem like it has any rare raw materials (but I’m a layman and just googled it).
Isn’t that one of the colors Bob Ross was always using?