Sodium-Ion Battery: 5-Minute Charge Breakthrough

Kolkata, Oct 15 (PTI) A four-member team of scientists at the Research Institute for Sustainable Energy (RISE) under TCG Crest has developed India's first indigenous sodium-ion battery that can be charged 94 per cent in just five minutes, a company statement said on Wednesday.

This batter can deliver an energy density of 180 wh/kg — believed to be among the highest in India and possibly among the top globally, it said.

However, this doesn't mean that a commercial sodium-ion battery is ready for deployment, the statement said.

The researchers have achieved a major milestone in sodium-ion battery which is touted to be far cheaper with indigenous raw material.

According to Abhik Banerjee, Chief Scientist with the research initiative, the new cells also deliver 10 kw/kg power output and show remarkable stability during high-speed charging.

The sodium-ion pouch cells, engineered by Banerjee and his team at RISE, outperform most lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries currently used in electric vehicles and grid storage, the statement said.

The cells retain 97 per cent capacity across multiple charge–discharge cycles and operate reliably under India's high-temperature conditions, it said.

“Currently, a few hundred charging cycles have been achieved. The next phase will focus on scaling this to around 6,000–7,000 cycles and ramping up higher-capacity cells. For any commercial application, a minimum of 2,000–3,000 charging cycles would be required,” Banerjee said.

This opens a clear pathway for India to "scale a new class of safer, cost-effective, and domestically manufacturable energy-storage solutions", he said.

"By combining indigenous materials, advanced electrochemistry, and intelligent design, we've demonstrated that sodium-ion batteries can not only match but, in several respects, exceed the performance of lithium-ion systems,” said Prof. Satishchandra Ogale, Director of RISE, TCG Crest.

Unlike lithium-ion batteries, the sodium-ion design developed at RISE uses no cobalt, nickel, copper, or lithium, reducing dependence on imported critical materials and supporting the Atmanirbhar Bharat vision.

Sreeroop Ghosh, Sayan Chatterjee, and Abhijit Garai have been actively associated with this project over the last two years.