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.
Happens when there is a lot of public interest in some sector…
But in this case it actually isn’t “new technology”. The idea is as old as lithium-ion batteries and equally solid. But back then (the 1990s) people saw greater potential in the more expensive (material-wise) lithium-ion batteries because for mobile electronics starting to become big energy density was more important than prize/ressources, so that’s were the money to develop and improve mass production went.
Now that there is interest for a product on a scale were required ressources are the more important factor than seize and weight (grid level energy storage for example) it’s only natural that those existing concepts are revisited everywhere as those concepts are usually already developed to “ripe for production” levels and all that is missing is the investments to build production up large scale… cost and efficiency improvements then happening naturally included. I mean… just look up how lithium-ion battery performance improved in the last decades without any actual technical improvements, just by optimizing processes with the experience from scaled up production.