My only observation after reading the information at the linked site is that despite the hype surrounding salt batteries, they don't seem to be making a lot of headway with market share, so there has to be more disadvantages than the site is letting on. That said, low discharge current is one of the disadvantages shown and depending on what they mean by "low" that can easily rule out many commercial and industrial uses.

The NY electrics might have been like this Grandma Duck style of vehicle photographed at the NRMA Carfest when it was last held in Macquarie St Sydney. Now gone out to Olympic Park I think.

One of the best metals for storage is actually Nickel. Tesla has people working on Gigawatt & Tera watt batteries. There have been a plethora of battery cells over a century or more. I would note that we are running out of Phosphorous.

If you have a look at Jay Lenos Garage, He has a Baker Electric and at least another type of twenties electric vehicles. A lot of doctors bought these as they were more reliable than the petrol cars of the time and did not require anything like the same maintenance.

I have done a bit of reading and it turns out that sodium ion and salt batteries are distinct types. The salt batteries use NaCl solution as the electrolyte which didn't come across in the Herald stories. I suspect that these stories are extracted from PR blurbs, and that journalists in these days of much reduced funding since their journal's advertising revenue collapsed, don't have time to make in depth investigations.

Some of those so called science reporters seem to have very little background knowledge on any subject and our education system is of no help.

There are more salts than common salt and the chemical definition; The word "chemistry" has two parts. Viz. Chemical and Mystery: Its that last bit that gets them every time.

Chemicals & Radio go back a long time Motor regulators for Alexanderson transmitter alternator motors was done with a salt bath, as was the dummy load for many high power transmitters to test their output.

Whenever I read about such things as salt batteries, I think immediately: If it were viable, the Israelis would have it already.

One could always look on the lighter side & speculate on the Epsom Salts battery for next April. Its bound to be a battery that goes down the toot quickly.

Are you sure a salt (NaCl) bath was used for regulators, dummy loads etc?

One of the by-products of such a setup would be chlorine gas!

Definition error:

Common salt is normally Sodium Chloride. In dyeing some materials I used Glauber's salt (sodium sulfate Na 2 SO 4 ·10H 2 O) which obviously is a "salt".

Chemically we are talking about salts. I think the one used to make the resistance at Radio Australia was Calcium based? By adding a specific amount, that gave a certain resistance. In similar fashion the
Motor controllers used immersed variable blades, I believe. The Alexanderson transmitters used chemical resistors. That would make cooling easier.

I would suspect that the transmitters power would be done thermally on the basis of 4200 joules per second to heat water one degree.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(chemistry)

Are you sure a salt (NaCl) bath was used for regulators, dummy loads etc?

Yep, here's a guy pumping more than 5kW of RF into a salt-based dummy load:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BAjHnZpVuc

The 6V batteries in that green car are used in golf buggies and electric carts made by Varley, which are used on major railway stations to carry luggage around. I've replaced a few of those in my time.

Thanks for posting the photos Brad.

I included the sign on the window so that I would know what the make was but it doesn't show up.

I suspect that is a Baker Electric? t is an interesting thing that many diesel Fergusson tractors used two 6V batteries in series as they apparently performed better than a single 12V of the time.

Baker & such were not designed for Lead Acid batteries, they were alkaline ones Edison built. Jay Leno has samples of the original chargers.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jay+leno+baker+electric+car&view=detail&mid=84DC14232A5992F35CE784DC14232A5992F35CE7&FORM=VIRE

Marc

The Chinese claim to have developed a "condensed" battery suitable for aircraft and would take a car Sydney to Melbourne on one charge.
A fair bit of technical detail for once.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-05-03/catl-announces-battery-to-make-electric-aviation-possible/102289310

I'll let them fly it whilst I stay on the ground. I am not a big fan of planes at any rate.