美国钠离子电池公司Natron Energy宣布停止运营

9月3日，多家媒体报道，美国钠离子电池公司Natron Energy宣布停止所有运营，关闭位于密歇根的Holland工厂和加州的Santa Clara工厂，并裁员95人。以下为ESS News报导：

The Californian startup had bold plans to establish the world’s first sodium-ion battery gigafatory but financial and market pressures have combined to render its business unviable.  

A year after announcing plans to invest nearly $1.4 billion in a sodium-ion battery gigafactory, Natron Energy has announced it will cease all operations, effective Sept. 3. 

In a letter submitted to the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, the company wrote it is permanently closing its facilities in Holland (Michigan) and Santa Clara (California) – terminating a total of 95 employees. 

According to the Federal WARN Act, employers are due to provide at least 60 days’ advance notice to affected workers before a mass layoff or plant closing.

Natron wrote that, until Aug. 27, it believed it could secure the capital and commercial business needed to at least postpone the closure or completely avoid it. 

“However, on August 27, 2025, Natron’s board of directors determined that Natron’s efforts to raise sufficient new funding were unsuccessful, having failed to result in sufficient funding proceeds to cover the required additional working capital and operational expenses of the business required to support execution of any purchase orders received by Natron,” the notice read.

Natron Energy, a spinoff out of Stanford University, was one of the most promising players in the world’s sodium-ion battery space in terms of manufacturing ambition. In August 2024, the company announced plans to open a 24 GW annual production facility in North Carolina, creating over 1,000 jobs. A couple of months earlier, Natron initiated commercial-scale production of sodium-ion batteries at its facility in Holland.

Natron has garnered a lot of attention with its patented Prussian blue electrode materials which promised to deliver “a high power, high cycle life, completely fire safe sodium-ion battery”.

According to Natron, its patented Prussian blue structure does not expand and contract as it charges and discharges sodium ions. This “zero strain” mechanism results in greater chemical stability and avoids the particle degradation that limits cycle life in other batteries.

As a result, its batteries were touted to deliver 10x faster cycling than traditional lithium-ion batteries and 50,000+ cycle life. The company has also made claims that its sodium-based chemistry is more energy dense than lithium-based chemistries.