(327d) Bio-Based Battery Materials for Circular Energy Storage Systems

The demand for electrochemical energy storage is increasing rapidly due to a combination of decreasing costs in renewable electricity, governmental policies promoting electrification, and a desire by the public to decrease CO2 emissions. Lithium-ion batteries are the leading form of electrochemical energy storage for electric vehicles and the electrical grid. Lithium-ion cell anodes are mostly made of graphite, which is derived from geographically constrained, non-renewable resources using energy-intensive and highly polluting processes. Thus, there is a desire to innovate technologies that utilize abundant, affordable, and renewable carbonaceous materials for the sustainable production of graphite anodes under relatively mild process conditions. Several novel graphitization methods show great promise at producing low-cost, battery-grade anode material from sustainable biomass resources. Results from graphitization of various biomass feedstocks at both laboratory and pilot scales will be presented. The biographite materials exhibit excellent electrochemical performance and are moving towards commercialization via strategic partners. Further, the opportunity exists for carbon-negative bio-batteries that remove atmospheric CO2 over their lifetime.