Sustainable Battery Chemistries and Materials for Next-Generation Battery Technologies

The ever-increasing demand for energy and the rapidly escalating environmental concerns have created enormous interest in the development of affordable clean energy technologies. Renewable energies, such as solar and wind, offer an appealing solution, but they are intermittent. A widespread adoption and utilization of renewable energy sources will need an economic and efficient storage of electricity produced from them; storage is currently the bottleneck to utilize renewable energies. Rechargeable batteries are the most viable option to store and utilize the electricity produced from renewable energies. However, a widespread adoption of battery technologies for grid electricity storage as well as for electric vehicles requires optimization of several parameters, such as cost, energy density, power density, cycle life, safety, and environmental impact, all of which are directly linked to severe materials challenges. Among them, cost, sustainability, supply chain issues will be the single dominant factor as we move forward to establish energy justice. This presentation will focus on the development of sustainable next-generation battery chemistries and materials.<br/><br/>The lithium-ion battery technology is currently dominated by layered oxide cathodes with expensive cobalt and nickel and graphite anode, which have supply chain challenges. In essence, cobalt is a problem today, nickel is a problem tomorrow, and lithium could become a problem day after tomorrow. This presentation will center on a path forward to eliminate cobalt first, followed by progressively eliminating mined transition metals, lithium, and finally any mined metal altogether. However, the task is met with fundamental materials science and engineering challenges. This presentation will focus on delineating the intricacies involved with them and the progress made in the following battery chemistries: cobalt-free lithium-ion, cobalt- and nickel-free lithium-ion, lithium-sulfur, sodium-sulfur, and sodium-organic batteries as an illustration to realize a sustainable battery technology future. For example, sodium is plenty in the ocean and sulfur is a byproduct in petrochemical industry, and both of them are mining-free. Specifically, innovative materials design, novel chemical synthesis, advanced materials characterization, prototype device assembly, and an establishment of the structure-property performance relationships will be presented to illustrate the progress.