Talk:Sodium–sulfur battery

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 02:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

NaS battery → Sodium-sulfur battery – "Sodium-sulfur battery" appears to be used a little more frequently, if Google is any indication. Also, I think that it is best to go with the full name rather than an abbreviation, if the full name is in relatively common use. Finally, the new name would match the other battery article names. For example, the Lithium ion battery article is not named "Li-ion battery", Nickel metal hydride battery is not named "NiMH battery" and Nickel-cadmium battery is not named "NiCd battery" (they are all given as alternate names in the articles, of course). -- Kjkolb 09:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

Support, avoid abbreviations. --Dhartung | Talk 11:49, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support per rationale. Dekimasu 08:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support per noination. Ratarsed 12:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Femto 12:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Add any additional comments

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Inert metal

Which is the inert metal used in Sodium-sulfur batteries ?. --HybridBoy 13:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is generally accepted that the inventors were Weber and Kumer at Ford Aerospace. Many patents exist, and were assigned to the two main developers, Chloride Silent Power, Ltd. in England, and Asea Brown Boveri in Germany. An excellent text on the sodium-sulfur battery, written by Sudworth and Tilley, was published in 1985 by Springer (ISBN-10: 0412164906).

Accuman (talk) 14:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A few suggestions to Greatly Improve the article

Unless I just missed it, it seems two important items are missing from the main article: Who invented it? Patents?

Perhaps someone who either lives in or frequently visits Japan could take (or otherwise legally obtain) GFDL-copyright-compatible pictures of the installation referenced in the article. In fact, an entire subsection of this article could be legitimately devoted to the topic. (e.g.: How old is it? Who built it for them? Any maintenace problems so far? Cost to build? Cost to operate? What will happen when it is time to retire the units? Are they recyclable, or rebuildable?)

Are there any other installations?

Badly Bradley 15:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've added as much detail as I can verify now about NAS Battery development in Japan. I'm sure I can dig up more from IEEJ Journals and other sources, but that's goint to take time. I'll also have to check about known installations other than those mentioned in the article so far. I know there is a 400kW battery bank in TEPCO's Hachijojima wind power station, and several semiconductor fabs are now using NAS batteries as a combined UPS/Emergency Generator replacement, as 8 hours is usually more than enough to deal with any power outages at 66kV grid in Japan.

MCEscher 13:56, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This battery is a "hot" battery. Is there a way to use this extra heat to run a stirling engine to power a small generator. The we could have a battery/stirling engine generator powered electric car? 21:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)Joseph Like 17:57 EDT 11 Oct 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.230.162.108 (talk)

non-toxic ?

The text claims that the battery is made out of non-toxic materials, but I guess sodium and sulfur are pretty toxic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.155.59.212 (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, I would not want to eat any sodium polysulfide, much less sodium metal.--Smokefoot (talk) 23:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hear that dihydrogen monoxide is pretty toxic, also. However,

"Sulfur is an essential component of all living cells." -- sulfur

"Sodium is present in great quantities in the earth's oceans ... it is an essential element for animal life." -- sodium

--68.0.124.33 (talk) 13:04, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are confusing toxic with corrosive. Sodium metal is not toxic (poisonous) as such, but it can give you nasty burns if you come in contact with it. Same goes for sodium hydroxide (which forms when sodium comes in contact with water). Corrosive in high concentrations, but pretty harmless in dilute form and certainly not toxic. Elemental sulfur has very low toxicity (it is used as a food additive), and sulfates and sulfites likewise. If the battery were to leak into the environment, the sodium and sodium polysulfide would not exist for a long time because they are highly reactive with water and air. They would quickly react to form sodium and sulfur salts, which have low toxicity. 80.121.107.8 (talk) 15:06, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Confused units throughout

This page uses incorrect units for capacity throughout most of the page. The capacity of a battery cannot be measured in KW or MW, because these are units of power, not of energy. The numbers quoted on this page are therefore mostly meaningless. Further research is required to find out what the correct units should have been: the most obvious possibilities being MWh or MJ. These differ in size by a factor of 3600, and so it is important to find out which one was intended. --Kevin Cowtan (talk) 13:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think Wh per kilogram and/or Wh per liter would describe battery capacity best. Roman (talk) 01:47, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above assertion regarding Wh/kg as a good capacity measure is incorrect. That would be energy density. What you really want is Wh (or MWh or GJ etc etc), as that would be analogous to capacity in the sense of "how many liters will this jug hold?". Well, ultimately we want to know "how many MWhs will this battery hold?". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.232.154 (talk) 13:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The worst part of this is "produces 420 milliampere-hours per gram" without a voltage. I still have no idea what's their energy density at all. 109.110.66.237 (talk) 00:08, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Magnesium / Antimony chemistry

MIT Professor Donald Sadoway is developing a liquid metal battery based on Magnesium / Antimony chemistry. See: http://www.ted.com/speakers/donald_sadoway.html and http://www.ambri.com/ Because the term “liquid metal battery” redirects here, this alternative chemistry should be mentioned, or “liquid metal battery” should present a disambiguation page. --Lbeaumont (talk) 01:40, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]