As the world has become more electrified the need for better battery technology has become more evident. Batteries aren’t that efficient and their production/disposal is not environmentally-friendly.
In particular, the electric car industry is growing rapidly. They rely on lithium-ion batteries that are 20-30% graphite by weight. The mining of natural graphite and production of synthetic graphite has a large environmental impact. Manufacturing one electric vehicle produces 30-40% more emissions than manufacturing one gasoline vehicle.
Stora Enso is a Finnish company that specializes in the production of wood and other biomass products that are meant to replace traditionally fossil fuel-based products. They have designed something called Lignode to replace the graphite in lithium-ion batteries. Lignode is a “hard-carbon” that is made from lignin, a by-product in the production of pulp from trees.
Photo adapted from the white paper Lignode® by Stora Enso: The future of electric cars is powered by trees, p. 11. You can find the white paper here: Lignode® by Stora Enso - Bio-based materials | Stora Enso
“Lignin is renewable, traceable and millions of tonnes of it are already being produced in Europe.” “Lignin makes up between 20-30% of trees…It is also the second largest potential source of renewable carbon found on our planet.”
Because lignin is a by-product of cellulose fiber that is currently burned, additional trees don’t necessarily need to be harvested. Lignin batteries also charge more quickly and perform better at lower temperatures.
Most of the information in this blog comes from the Stora Enso website, but other independent scientific articles back up their claims. Primarily, I read a paper by Jung et al. (2022) called Lignin-Based Materials for Sustainable Rechargeable Batteries, published in the journal Polymers (Basel).
I am certainly no battery expert, but wood batteries seem promising.
