Sodium-ion batteries, currently in an early stage of development, could suit large-scale energy storage much better than Li-ion batteries, partially because sodium is cheap and plentiful and because sodium is environmentally benign.

University of Maryland (UM) researchers Liangbing Hu and Teng Li found a way around the problem of sodiation, whereby the sodium ions cause the anode of the battery to swell. The resulting sodium-ion battery that uses wood fibers increases durability twenty-fold compared with previous designs. Because of their low cost and use of environmentally benign common materials, sodium-ion batteries could be used to store large amounts of energy from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.