• 2 min read
China’s 4-minute sodium battery targets lithium reliance
Lu Yaxiang’s sodium battery charges in about four minutes as China pushes a broader shift away from imported lithium.
Image: TNW
China imports 75% of its lithium, which helps explain the attention around a new sodium metal battery from Lu Yaxiang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Physics. In April, Lu received China’s Youth May Fourth Medal, the country’s top honour for outstanding achievers under 35, for work on a battery that charges in roughly four minutes and retains 90% of its capacity after 2,000 cycles.
The battery uses a quasi-solid gel electrolyte that continues working even when repeatedly bent. That matters because sodium is far more plentiful than lithium — the source says it is 500 times more abundant — can be extracted from seawater, and costs a fraction as much. Lu’s work is part of a wider Chinese effort to build battery technology that is less exposed to foreign supply chains.
Sodium battery production in China
China’s larger battery makers are already pushing sodium-ion beyond the lab. In May, Gotion unveiled sodium battery products with 261 Wh/kg energy density and 20,000 charge cycles, figures that move the chemistry closer to lithium iron phosphate in some use cases.
Recommended reading
Luch-5 satellites kept Soyuz MS-29 linked to the ISS
The technology is also showing up at utility scale. A sodium battery station covering 15 football fields is feeding a Chinese power grid and storing energy for 12,000 homes. CATL has also signed a deal to supply 60 GWh of sodium batteries for energy storage in Ningde, Fujian.
There are still tradeoffs. Current commercial sodium cells typically reach 150–175 Wh/kg at the cell level, below the 250–280 Wh/kg common for high-nickel lithium-ion. But the gap is narrowing quickly, with Lu’s fast-charging design, Gotion’s 261 Wh/kg prototype, and CATL’s production plans moving faster than many analysts expected.
That momentum is showing up beyond China too. MIT Technology Review named sodium-ion batteries one of its 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2026. According to the source, sodium-ion could reach lithium cost parity by 2027, with overlapping price ranges by 2028 as production scales.
Frontier Editor
Dan is our resident futurist, covering electric mobility, space exploration, and the smart home. He's interested in atoms just as much as bits. Whether it's a new battery chemistry, a reusable rocket, or a protocol that finally makes IoT devices talk to each other, Dan breaks down the engineering that pushes humanity forward.
via TNW
