Industry | Electronics |
---|---|
Founded | 2012 |
Headquarters | Santa Clara, California |
Key people | CEO Colin Wessells |
Products | Sodium-ion batteries |
Website | https://natron.energy/ |
Natron Energy is a United States-based company focused on the development of sodium-ion batteries. They were the first to begin commercial production of sodium-ion batteries in the United States. [1] and are among the first worldwide to start mass production.
The company was founded in 2012 by Colin Wessels, who was a Ph.D. student at Stanford University at the time. [2] In 2020, Natron Energy's sodium-ion battery was the first to meet the UL 1973 safety standard for energy storage systems, [3] making it possible to deploy it commercially in data centers. In 2024, production began in Holland, Michigan.
Natron Energy announced in August 2024 the construction of a gigafactory in North Carolina. [4]
Natron Energy's battery technology is based on sodium-ion cells that use Prussian blue as the electrode material. [5] Natron Energy claims that its BluePack Critical Power Battery can be fully charged in 15 minutes and offers more than 50,000 deep discharge cycles. [6]
As of September 2024 [update] , Natron Energy has received public and private funding totaling US$19 million. [7]
Sodium is a chemical element; it has symbol Na and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable isotope is 23Na. The free metal does not occur in nature and must be prepared from compounds. Sodium is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and exists in numerous minerals such as feldspars, sodalite, and halite (NaCl). Many salts of sodium are highly water-soluble: sodium ions have been leached by the action of water from the Earth's minerals over eons, and thus sodium and chlorine are the most common dissolved elements by weight in the oceans.
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