BroadBit Batteries and the EIC Accelerator: Sodium-Salt Cells

What if a battery could be made from table salt instead of lithium? BroadBit Batteries, a Finnish company in Helsinki, develops "Sodium-Salt" batteries made from common materials such as table salt, with a sulphur dioxide based electrolyte, which it says are non-flammable, cheap and easy to recycle. It also sells ProLion, an electrolyte for ordinary lithium-ion cells.

The European Innovation Council granted €2,500,000 towards a €3.63 million project to scale production, and, according to BroadBit, offered up to €8 million in equity if it raised €8 million elsewhere. The project ended in May 2025 with cells in testing by pilot customers. No production line, funding round or EIC investment has been announced since, and the company now pitches its sodium cells for long-duration grid storage.

Where BroadBit Stands Today

In March 2026 BroadBit announced it had been named a Champion in the Long Game Energy Storage challenge of Western Australia's GreenTech Hub, citing a possible cost below $30 per kWh, more than 95% round-trip efficiency and a 50-year calendar life for its sodium-salt battery. Its other 2026 announcements concern lithium-ion: in September 2026 it reported that prototype lithium manganese iron phosphate cells using its ProLion 3M electrolyte kept more than 80% capacity after 2,600 full cycles. The website names no customers or investors.

The Technology: Salt Instead of Lithium

BroadBit's sodium-salt cell uses sodium from common salt and a liquid sulphur dioxide electrolyte, with a thick cathode that the company says removes most of the costly steps of cell manufacturing. Its storage brochure from December 2025 shows lab data from 3,000 daily cycles simulating combined daily and seasonal storage, with 93% round-trip efficiency at eight-hour charge and discharge.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

In 2021 BroadBit said SodiScale would complete its research, install dry cathode and SO2 electrolyte production equipment for large-scale manufacturing, and bring sodium-salt batteries to market as a lithium-ion replacement, with electric vehicles and grid storage as targets. The CORDIS report describes test pouch cells, "bucket" cells and prismatic cells, thick-cathode designs for 50, 100 and 200-hour storage, more than 60 granted patents and customer-specified testing, and says the "technology is validated with pilot customers". It claims the design eliminates "90% of the process and capital costs for cell production" and cuts production emissions by 80% compared with lithium-ion. It gives no energy density, cost per kWh or production volume.

1. Complete the R&DDeliveredSeveral cell formats built and tested.
2. Pilot customersPartialTesting under way; none named.
3. Scaled productionNot shownNo production line announced.
4. Matching private capitalNot shownNo round announced.

What Has Happened Since the Award

The Money

The award was "grant first". The EIC's equity offer of up to €8 million depended on BroadBit raising the same amount from other investors. We found no announcement of such a round, no EIC Fund investment, and no named investor on the company's investor page, which lists only the CEO as a contact.

Why Europe Should Care

BroadBit says its sodium-salt battery "can be cost-effectively manufactured from locally sourced materials", which would make grid storage less dependent on imported battery metals. Its outcome also shows the gap between grant and scale: without matching private capital, the equity the EIC offered for manufacturing has not been announced as paid.

The Verdict

BroadBit Batteries has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on company statements, EU project data and the Finnish Trade Register, linked throughout.