Natron Energy, a Santa Clara, California-based sodium-ion battery startup, ceased operation on 3 September on account of funding points. Only a yr in the past, the corporate made headlines for its plans to construct a first-of-its-kind US $1.4 billion manufacturing facility in North Carolina to fabricate as much as 14 gigawatt-hours of sodium-ion batteries. Whereas specialists say Natron’s closure shouldn’t be taken as a harbinger for the remainder of the emerging industry in the USA, they acknowledge that the West is behind China, which is leveraging its dominance in lithium-ion batteries to forge forward on sodium-ion battery manufacturing.
Within the U.S., sodium-ion startups like Natron, which launched in 2012, are likely to depend on goodwill from funders, says K.M. Abraham, a retired analysis professor at Northeastern College in Boston and CTO of lithium-ion battery consulting agency E-KEM Sciences. This could pose challenges for firms when funding timelines outpace improvements.
“Firms aren’t in a position to make progress shortly sufficient to maintain up with stress exerted by the traders,” he says.
Natron’s Pioneering Prussian Blue Batteries
Till not too long ago, Natron was seen as a frontrunner of the pack within the U.S. sodium-ion market. A part of the corporate’s attraction was its pioneering strategy to low-cost electrodes, the conductors on the battery’s optimistic and damaging terminals, which make contact with the non-metallic a part of the circuit. The corporate used Prussian Blue, a pigment present in paints and dyes, to make each the cathode and anode for its three battery systems. Along with having a low materials value, Prussian Blue’s chemical construction has giant pores, serving to it facilitate sooner ion switch between the electrodes.
Natron was the first in the world to commercialize a sodium-ion battery utilizing Prussian Blue, an actual feat contemplating China’s battery manufacturing may, says Tyler Evans, co-founder and CEO of Mana Battery, a Broomfield, Colorado-based sodium-ion battery cell startup that launched in 2023.
“They had been doing it within the West, they usually had been scaling a expertise that was comparatively low vitality density for a really particular market phase,” says Evans about Natron’s merchandise.
Mana is one other U.S. startup specializing in bringing sodium-ion batteries to market.Nicholas Singstock/Mana
That market included grid storage, information heart energy backups, and electric vehicle charging stations—large-scale stationary purposes the place attributes like security and value rank greater than vitality density. Natron’s success on this area, together with its plans for the North Carolina manufacturing facility, prompted questions on whether or not sodium-ion might emerge as a direct substitute for lithium-ion batteries. United Airlines and Chevron had been on the listing of Natron’s traders.
However Evans says scaling up a low-energy density product whereas constructing out manufacturing traces is pricey. “If you concentrate on constructing a producing facility the place you need to produce 10 gigawatt hours of batteries, in case your vitality density could be very low, producing an equal variety of batteries requires extra manufacturing traces,” Evans says.
“If you concentrate on constructing a producing facility the place you need to produce a gigawatt-hour of battery manufacturing capability, in case your vitality density per battery cell could be very low, producing that capability requires extra manufacturing traces,” Evans says, which means considerably extra capital and operational expenditure in an already capital-intensive endeavor.
In 2023, Natron’s programs made it to market. The corporate partnered with Encorp to deploy the business’s first multi-megawatt class energy platform for industrial purposes. A yr later, in 2024, Natron opened the U.S.’s first business scale manufacturing facility in Holland, Michigan to provide data centers with energy storage. The U.S. Division of Power’s ARPA-E program supplied $19.8 million to Natron as a part of a $300 million facility improve to transition from lithium-ion battery manufacturing to sodium-ion battery manufacturing. That facility shut its doorways similtaneously Natron’s California headquarters on 3 September.
A request for remark from Natron resulted in an automatic message to contact the corporate’s primary shareholder, Sherwood Companions. Sherwood Companions didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Sodium-Ion vs. Lithium-Ion Battery Prices
Adrian Yao is the founder and staff lead of Stanford’s STEER initiative, a DOE-funded analysis program. He’s additionally an writer of a January 2025 paper assessing how sodium-ion batteries measure as much as lithium-ion batteries by way of expertise and value.
Whereas he was impressed with Natron’s expertise and product, he says that the corporate could have been forward of the curve on the info heart market area of interest it had carved out for itself. “Hyperscalers proper now, their major concern is simply getting related and constructing information facilities,” says Yao. “I believe timing on that cycle could also be early, and it’s unlucky issues don’t at all times work out.”
Natron joins Stanford spin-out Bedrock Materials because the second sodium-ion firm to fold this yr. Bedrock cited market and innovation challenges for its April closure.
“The battery enterprise could be very tough. There are quite a lot of tombstones,” says Andrew Thomas, president and cofounder of Acculon Energy, a Columbus, Ohio-based startup advertising and marketing two battery modules with sodium-ion cells for industrial vitality and EVs that journey at low speeds, like golf carts. Not like Natron, Acculon, which launched in 2022, employs extra conventional layered-metal oxides and different sodium chemistries.
Thomas says it’s this distinction that makes it onerous to attract conclusions concerning the U.S. sodium-ion battery business as an entire in mild of Natron’s closure. Evaluating totally different sodium-ion chemistries, like Prussian Blue or layered steel oxides, is like evaluating apples to oranges.
“I don’t suppose one failure is consultant of a rustic being unable, however we’re at a big drawback given the put in base in China,” Thomas says.
China is the dominant participant in sodium-ion battery growth, with firms like CATL displaying their designs at tech expos.Yuan Zheng/VCG/AP
China’s Dominance in Battery Manufacturing
China has lengthy dominated the battery business, and sodium-ion batteries are not any exception. Right now, China produces greater than 75 % of batteries offered globally, in line with the International Energy Agency. On the sodium-ion entrance, builders like CATL have moved into second-generation batteries, with the April launch of Naxtra, a model geared towards EV purposes.
Yao says he’d wish to see the U.S. focus its focus extra on increase its manufacturing prowess to compete with China. “My broader critique of the Western Hemisphere by way of our pondering and obsession with attempting to innovate ourselves out of the issue, is that we focus an excessive amount of on tech,” Yao says. “We now have little or no manufacturing expertise… Our yield charges are abysmal, and our workforce will not be educated.”
Founders like Evans and Thomas are optimistic about their prospects as rising demand for grid storage, information facilities, and low-cost mobility purposes drives the necessity for purposes they are saying sodium-ion batteries are uniquely geared up to help by way of temperature vary, security, and value metrics. In terms of manufacturing, Mana is taking a web page from China’s playbook by partnering with present producers to scale up manufacturing.
Evans says there’s an urge for food for this sort of partnership within the U.S. proper now. “I believe it’s a commercialization candy spot that’s particular to sodium.”
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