 I'd like to welcome our next guest, Dr. Manjusha Shalke. Please join me. Hello. Thanks for being here. So Manjusha Shalke, you founded a startup in a field that will be crucial in the years to come. You co-founded Recharging Energy, a startup that is currently developing an alternative to lithium batteries using sodium, which could be a cheaper and sustainable alternative for battery production. Could you remind us, first of all, why, of course, we need lithium batteries, but they're not perfect, why they're not perfect? Yeah. Thank you so much, Valerie. And thanks to IEA for having me here. It's Manjusha Shalke, not Shalke. My apologies. Well, so as you mentioned that I have founded Recharging Energy. Basically, I am an academician. I'm a scientist in one of the national labs in India. And based on the research that has been carried out in my lab, we have incorporated this company to take this research from lab to market. Well, so I'll tell you what are the problems with lithium battery. As you said that we need lithium ion batteries definitely. And invention and commercialization of lithium ion batteries have one of the greatest impact on technological development that has happened in human history because all our portable organic electronics devices, cell phones and laptops, everything is charged by lithium ion batteries. And now, what they call as e-mobility revolution where electric vehicles are being pushed worldwide. So the demand for this lithium ion batteries is going to grow exponentially. So that is where the problems also become prominent because lithium ion batteries are prone to heat up. I mean, they are prone to thermal runaway. In our scientific language, we call it thermal runaway. So that chemist inherently is prone to thermal runaway. And in extreme conditions, they can catch fire as well. And battery can explode. We see a lot of incidences where electric vehicles are catching fire, right? So safety is paramount for such kind of paramount applications. So that is one of the drawbacks of lithium ion battery. Second is cost. So over the years, the cost of lithium ion battery has decreased significantly. But still, if we see the representation of the cost in the devices of, for example, electric vehicles, the cost of battery is the highest one. So we still further need cost reduction. And we have to develop sustainable energy storage solutions if we have larger adoptions of electric vehicles throughout the world, right? So that is another issue with lithium ion battery. And third is that extraction and processing of raw materials like lithium or cobalt, which are necessary materials for fabricating lithium ion batteries. There is a lot of environmental impact in these processes as compared to, I would say, like extraction of lithium if I give an example, around 2.2 million liters of water is required to process one ton of lithium. So there is a lot of environmental impact around lithium. Besides, we know that cobalt, which is found generally, or which is mined generally in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And there are reports of very poor labor standards and conditions under which those materials are mined. And there is environmental impact in DRC because of these cobalt mines as well. So these are certain issues with lithium ion batteries. And that's why we need more sustainable energy for alternatives to them. Is there also an issue of limited resources and the fact that we are entering an era in which we will need an exponential amount of lithium batteries? And as you were saying, that involves mining critical minerals, rare earths. And so there's also this kind of more strategic geopolitical element of there's a race to have access to that lithium. But not everyone can have access to that lithium or the other rare minerals, critical minerals. Yeah, that's true because lithium is concentrated. Most of the lithium deposits are concentrated in South American countries, like Chile and Argentina and Bolivia. And some of the lithium deposits are found in China and Australia as well. And most of these mines, even if South American countries have larger lithium deposits, these mines are controlled by China. So of course, there are geopolitical issues for access to this lithium. And as I said, cobalt is also found mostly in Congo. And even those mines are also substantially controlled by China. So there is a kind of energy insecurity in some parts of the world because of the geopolitical issues. So we definitely need raw materials where all the countries can have access to. So sodium is kind of... Where does sodium come into play here? Yeah, that is where sodium come into play because it's most abundant material and it is proportionately distributed throughout the globe. So that's why it has an age over sodium and batteries. So you have found a way to manufacture batteries with sodium. So replacing lithium with sodium, correct? So sodium, is it salt? Is it just like sea salt or where does it come from? It's not exactly sea salt, but the raw material that is required to make the electron material, sodium-containing electron material, is a sea salt. So generally, sodium metal is produced by electrolytic reduction of sea salt, sodium chloride, which is not as environmentally disastrous as like lithium extraction, and sodium chloride is abundantly available in our oceans, right? So that is where sodium metal is, I would not extract it, but synthesize by electrolytic reduction of table salt. But it needs to be in certain forms where it can store the energy. So electron materials based on sodium, those are then further synthesized from that sodium metal. So essentially, this does not require, so no extractive industries. This is something that's created in a lab? Yes, it can be created in the lab. What are the benefits? I mean, aside from what we've mentioned so far, no extractive industries, you know, the geopolitical energy and security related to lithium human rights, why would a sodium ion battery be better or at least an interesting alternative to lithium batteries? It's interesting because it can be fabricated in the similar manufacturing plants where lithium ion batteries. So the scalability or adoption can be very easy. Scaling is very easy because already there is an industry. There are instruments where lithium ion batteries are being manufactured. So same facility can be used for sodium ion battery manufacturing as well. But the most important thing with sodium ion battery is safety. These chemistry is inherently safer than lithium ion battery. It is not prone to thermal runaway as easy as lithium ion battery and it does not catch fire. And besides, they can be charged and discharged at very faster rates. Like we can charge sodium ion battery in 15 minutes, which is not possible with lithium ion battery. We can discharge them completely up to zero volt. You must have heard that we are not supposed to put our lithium batteries or battery banks in our checked-in luggage when we travel via air, right? It is because there are certain issues. We cannot keep charged battery and we cannot discharge lithium ion battery completely because it can catch fire. But with sodium ion battery, that problem is not there. We can discharge it completely and we can carry it in our, I mean, anywhere. Transportation is possible. So you can recharge a sodium battery a lot faster than lithium battery? Yeah. I mean, that could certainly be a game changer in when it comes to electric vehicles. Yeah, it can be definitely. It can be a game changer. If, I mean, if we see all these benefits to sodium batteries, how come, you know, we're not seeing them in all, in all the EVs around the world if, you know, if they have all these benefits? Yeah, there are all the benefits, but you know, when lithium ion battery has been commercialized in 1991 and, you know, over the 30 plus years, its cost has reduced tenfold and its energy density has increased threefold. So sodium ion battery is still at early stage of commercialization. It has a potential to reduce the cost because the raw materials that are used are cheaper. If I give an example that lithium carbonate, the cost of lithium carbonate is around 37,000 US dollar per metric ton and that has reduced substantially since 2022. Before that, it was more than 80,000 US dollar per metric ton for sodium carbonate, which is a raw material for sodium ion batteries. It's the cost is around 290 US dollar per metric ton, but cost is one aspect of financial viability of sodium ion batteries. You need to have a proper supply chain and supply chain with considering this cost, I mean, proper, I think, I would say competitive prices are required. So that kind of supply chain has not been built yet for sodium ion battery because, as I said, it is at the early stage of commercialization plus the energy density or the performance that is required for the advanced applications like electric vehicles. It is not yet optimized to be competitive with lithium ion batteries. It is comparable with, so in lithium ion batteries, also there are different kind of electrode materials and based on that, the applications of lithium ion battery are different. So LFP, lithium iron phosphate based batteries, which are considered as safer among lithium batteries itself. So the performance of sodium ion batteries comparable with LFP, but it is still not of the standard of some of the lithium ion batteries when it comes to energy density. So that is one of the challenge. Then supply chain is another challenge and as I say, that there are certain regulatory requirements also. So I would say that a lot of work is still needed to bring sodium ion batteries as a competitor to lithium ion battery, but I think it will catch up eventually. Correct me if I'm wrong, but so lithium batteries, they have, the range is bigger and so you could potentially, I mean, if you have a car with a lithium battery, you could drive for several hours, several hundred kilometers and sodium batteries on the other hand are great if you want to recharge them very quickly but then you could only use them for like a shorter amount of time. Is that distinction, is it correct that we could use maybe sodium for, you know, immobility, for like maybe electric scooters or delivering things in the city where you can actually recharge them, you know, several times during the day? It's not exactly correct. It's not wrong either. When it comes to range, it depends on the battery pack. What we say, the energy density of the battery pack, you know, so if there are hundred lithium ion cells giving you certain energy density for that battery pack that has given a range to that electric vehicle, maybe we need a little more sodium ion batteries but we can have the battery pack with similar energy density which can give similar range. Besides in sodium ion battery, the internal materials that are used to fabricate the battery, so one thing is that it is the electron materials or sodium ion chemistries compatible with aluminum, whereas in lithium ion batteries, you need to use copper. So that has reduced because aluminum is lighter than copper. So it reduces the weight of sodium ion battery even though the energy density is slightly lesser than lithium batteries, the weight can be reduced. But as I say, as you say that probably the sodium ion battery base battery packs will be slightly heavier than lithium ion battery but I don't see that as a challenge for eventual adoption of sodium ion batteries in electric vehicles because initially when lithium ion batteries were commercialized, their energy densities were also very, very less. So when it comes up a play between safety and faster charging and energy density, I would say that eventually sodium ion batteries will be adopted at least in certain applications like two-wheelers and three-wheelers probably. You are from India and how do sodium batteries address India's need to expand efforts with renewable energy storage and capacity? How can this be a solution as well applied to other countries globally? Well, India is already prioritizing the local manufacturing industry through the initiatives like Make in India campaign that our government is running. It is promoting local manufacturing of most of that and creating a kind of self-reliant energy future for India. So in that sense, sodium ion battery offer an opportunity to create energy storage system based on locally available resources and local expertise also. There are a lot of people who are trying to scale up the sodium ion battery technology and most of the materials required for sodium ion battery technology are available within India. So I believe that this is an advantage for India's renewable energy needs. Also India is running larger program for solar and wind energy. So this renewable energy is intermittent even though India is blessed with a lot of sunlight throughout the year. This renewable energy cannot be directly integrated with our current existing grid or energy storage systems because it is intermittent. So you need to store, you need to have reliable energy storage systems which can store this energy during peak generation and then it can be reliable power, can be supplied when the renewable energy is not available. So yeah. Has energy already been stored in sodium batteries? Yes, yes. Great. So it's, I mean, is there a specific project or, I mean, in India that you could share an example? It is not commercialized or deployed yet in India but there are companies like Recharge and Energy which is my startup and then recently Reliance Energy which is one of the biggest corporate in India. They have acquired one sodium ion battery company from UK. So there is a lot of push for this kind of alternate energy or new energy technologies in India but deployment has not happened yet. Given the strategic importance of lithium batteries, we've seen obviously tremendous interest over the last few years. Do you think that because of that advanced economies have already won that race and secure the technology, the access to the minerals and if they have won that race can sodium ion batteries be an alternative for emerging economies? Sodium ion battery is an alternative not only for emerging economies. If I see like I had traveled to US last year, I was there one year on my Fulbright Fellowship and I did meet a lot of people from the battery innovation ecosystem in New York and around and I see that it's not only India or it's not only the emerging economies. Even the developed countries like US has a problem of supply chain for lithium ion batteries or lithium ion battery manufacturing, component manufacturing, everything is concentrated in very few countries. Even United States also doesn't have complete control over that battery ecosystem, lithium battery ecosystem. So they are very much interested in such kind of technology based on sodium ion which can be easily scaled up. Of course there are technological challenges and one has to work over those technological challenges and we have to leverage regulatory support and the market dynamics and then we can scale up those technology which can be applied globally for even for developing economy, even for developed economies I would say. Can India be the next powerhouse in terms of sodium ion batteries? Do you see that happening in the future? I definitely see that happening in the future. The way the development is going on in India, the kind of push Indian government is providing for alternate energy storage solutions to become self-reliant and to have a secure energy future for India. Also Indian government is prioritizing sustainable goals and their environmental objectives. So it does align with the India's ambitions for clean energy transition while their commitment towards environmental objectives as well. So sodium ion battery fits very well in those objectives and in those goals of India for moving towards clean energy transition. You are a scientist but you're also the founder of a startup. How did you put yourself in the shoes of a business owner having a scientific background and perhaps not being in the business world? How did you make maybe the transition or how did you, yeah? Yeah, it was entirely different to be an entrepreneur than to be an academician because as an academician you don't really worry about the real life applications of the research that you are doing. You are driven by finding out something or creating a knowledge, not necessarily having an application of that knowledge but developing the science. But when I have decided to venture into entrepreneurship, I have to relearn a lot of things, unlearn a lot of things and relearn a lot of things. Unlearn to talk a lot of things in scientific or technical language and then filter out those technical jargon and explain the things to the people who are not from scientific background in a more compelling or in a more convincing way. For that, I mean even I have taken classes even at this stage of my career to how to make pitch presentations without being too much scientific or too much technically. So it required a lot of mindset change and I have to adopt kind of business language which I don't think I have learned completely even today but I am learning it. It was a lot of learning. How did you go about convincing funders who don't necessarily have a scientific background? Yeah, so basically initially most of the fundraising that we have done was from government agencies. So it was easy because there was expert panel so it was easy to explain then the requirement of developing such kind of technology which can really would be helpful for India's resilient energy future but our first fundraising that we have done with Social Alpha, so Smitha is here. I would not say that they are completely technologically unaware. They very much knew about climate-based technologies. They understand the technical things behind these kind of climate innovative technologies. So it was quite easier to convince them but of course I have developed a kind of compelling narrative and storytelling to emphasize the practical usage of the research that I have done in my lab and I have built a proper value proposition to convince them but so far it was easy because it is still at early stage, ideation stage or pro-concept stage I would say. I don't know how it would be in future. As a journalist I have done several stories on lithium batteries and I have never interviewed a woman who is actually working in that field. I don't know if it's because it's mostly men who are in the positions to actually present the projects and so on but what's your take on that? Is it because maybe women are less likely to become entrepreneurs or take that risk? What's your take on that? It's not that women are less likely to be entrepreneurs. Since when I have done the shoes of entrepreneurship I see a lot of female founders around me. In fact I see more female founders than female scientists that I used to see around me. So it's not that there are not women entrepreneurs but energy storage or renewable energy is kind of such a deep take innovation. It requires decades of R and D behind that and I think that is where these years of commitment towards research and development that is where are very less women are there in this particular area of research because it requires a lot of resilience and years of research and development and you also need to have proper work-life balance so a lot of women tend to even though initially they, I mean I do have a lot of female students who are doing PhD in energy storage or in renewable energy but the drop-off at certain stage because it is quite demanding. It is time demanding. It requires prioritizing your caregiving and family responsibilities as well as your research and development responsibilities. So probably that is one of the reason that why there are not many women entrepreneurs in energy sector particularly but I see that it is changing. It is changing a lot in India at least. The same final question as our previous guests. If you had a magic wand and could change anything about the world for a more sustainable planet what would you do? Yeah, if I have a magic wand to have a more sustainable planet probably I would try to instill a sense of environmental responsibility among the people. We see that I don't know as a scientist I don't really believe in magic but I would say that maybe a more connection towards our mother earth and for that a lot of mindset change or cultural shift would be required so I would try to instill that among the human population if I could really do magic. Yeah, the overwhelming response has been there's no magic but thanks for that. Thank you again for being here today. Thank you so much for sharing your insights. Thank you so much.