A group of researchers in Tokyo may have just cracked one of the biggest problems holding back sodium-ion batteries — and the solution is surprisingly simple: a pinch of copper.
The team, led by Professor Shinichi Komaba from Tokyo University of Science, discovered that adding copper to sodium manganese oxide helps fix tiny structural flaws that were quietly killing battery life. These flaws, known as stacking faults, mess with the material’s structure and wear it out faster.
Published on July 15 in Advanced Materials, the study shows that copper-doped sodium batteries lasted five times longer than their regular counterparts. Where undoped versions gave up after 30 charge cycles, the new ones held strong beyond 150.
For anyone following the battery world, this is big news. Sodium is way cheaper and more widely available than lithium, which powers most of today’s phones, EVs, and storage grids. But sodium batteries haven’t taken off yet, mainly because their parts — especially the cathodes — don’t last long enough.
Komaba’s team played around with different amounts of copper and watched the stacking faults vanish almost entirely. In their best samples, defects dropped from 4.4% to just 0.3%. That tiny fix led to a major boost in battery stability.
What made this work possible? A bit of smart chemistry, some advanced X-ray tools, and a lot of patience. The team even found a never-seen-before shifting pattern in the battery’s structure — a kind of gliding motion in the manganese oxide layers — that was previously hidden by all those faults.
The takeaway? This could be a turning point. If sodium-ion batteries can finally go the distance, we might soon have cheaper, more sustainable power for everything from phones to power grids — without being so dependent on expensive lithium.
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