this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Compared to other battery chemistry types using lithium makes tons of sense.
Lead acid type batteries like sealed and AGM are cheap but not power dense and do not offer the same discharge ability that lithium offers without damaging the battery (AGM fixes this but it's still an issue). Some lead acid batteries require continuous maintenance and vent toxic gasses which may be an issue depending on your encloser.
Nickel cadmium batteries solve a lot of issues that lead acid batteries are plagued with however they suffer from moisture intrusion issues causing self discharge. Nickel cadmium also suffers from memory effect which may completely ruin pour battery depending on your use. The elephant in the room with nickel cadmium is that it's banned in some countries including the European union due to how toxic cadmium is.
Now with lithium, it's a very energy dense battery which means you need less batteries to meet a capacity or you can fit more capacity into an encloser. There isn't any electrolyte or water maintenance you need to worry about. You can discharge and recharge as you wish with minimal damage. Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.
I find it interesting that, on a post about sodium ion batteries, your comment completely excludes them
The original comment was about lithium and their popularity for backup power. Sodium ion batteries are so new that you can't purchase them yet (blueitte supposedly released the NA300 but I can't find any in stock and it's no longer on their site).
It wouldn't be fair to compare a chemistry you cannot purchase and which it's strengths and weaknesses haven't been tested outside of controlled laboratory testing.
Fair point - I'm not really that good with the physical sciences personally so apologies for my ignorance