Solving the solvent problem

Researchers at MIT have made progress on a challenge that could reshape battery technology. Sodium-metal batteries could be far cheaper and more abundant than today's lithium-ion cells — sodium costs roughly one-hundredth as much and is about a thousand times more plentiful. The catch: sodium is so reactive that batteries struggle to stay stable while charging and discharging quickly. A new paper published in the journal Joule describes how MIT scientists solved this using the right electrolyte — the fluid that lets charged ions move between a battery's electrodes. By designing smaller solvent molecules, they found one called DMFSA that enables faster ion transport without sacrificing long-term durability, addressing a persistent trade-off in battery chemistry. The researchers used AI to screen one hundred thousand candidate molecules and tested the most promising ones in the lab. Per MIT News, this breakthrough could eventually lead to cheaper, faster-charging batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage, and introduces a design principle that could benefit other energy storage technologies beyond sodium batteries.

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