Cheaper, Faster, Cleaner: Scientists Have Developed the World’s First Anode-Free Sodium Battery

Researchers from UChicago Professor Y. Shirley Meng’s Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion have created the first anode-free sodium solid-state battery.

By developing this battery, the LESC – a collaborative initiative between the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the University of California San Diego’s Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering – has brought the reality of inexpensive, fast-charging, high-capacity batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage closer than ever.

“Although there have been previous sodium, solid-state, and anode-free batteries, no one has been able to successfully combine these three ideas until now,” said UC San Diego PhD candidate Grayson Deysher, first author of a new paper outlining the research.