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Attracting new eyes around the world, electric cars are causing companies to come together to create a new sustainable project, which aims to use trees to develop new batteries, aiming at a new source of income.
Stora Enso, a company located in Finland, known for manufacturing pulp and paper, is venturing into new areas. With digitization, the need to production and paper consumption has fallen. In this way, the company has sought new sources of income. With a focus on sustainability, the answer to this quest resulted in a battery for electric cars made from trees. The battery has been developed by a network of companies in Europe and the US, Stora Enso being one of them.
Lignin, carbon and anode! Understand more about how these electric car batteries work
Defining itself as “one of the largest owners of private forests in the world”, it decided to take advantage of its possession of raw materials to meet a need that is increasingly popular in the contemporary world: the manufacture of batteries for electric cars.
A compound present in about 30% of trees, lignin is a polymer that keeps the cellulose fibers well connected to each other, promoting rigidity to the entire structure.
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Furthermore, carbon is one of the compounds of lignin, which, as far as it is concerned, is the raw material of an extremely necessary component of batteries, the anode, which is the negative electrode of the equipment.
The positive one is called cathode, and through the traffic of lithium or sodium ions, it generates the energy that will power electric cars.
In conventional batteries, the anodes present are generally graphite. However, the production of synthetic graphite is not sustainable at all.
For example, one of the steps in production is heating the carbon for weeks to over 3.000°C. The energy needed for this heating is usually produced in coal-fired power plants, resulting in a network of damage to the environment.
With an eye on sustainability, but without losing focus on monetization
Stora Enso, seeing this opportunity, joined the search for a new source of income with the production of clean energy.
The company's engineering professionals discovered that they could extract the lignin from the waste pulp generated at the company's mills, without the need for additional tree felling.
After processing, the lignin will be used to manufacture carbon material for battery anodes.
The manufacture of lignin-based anodes also requires heating, but at much lower temperatures.
Northvolt, a Swedish battery production company, has already shown interest in the project and has already signed a partnership. The forecast to start manufacturing the batteries is in 2025.
One of Stora Enso's specialists states that due to the structure of the carbon extracted from the trees, it is irregular, allowing more mobility in and out of ions.
Due to this property, new batteries for electric cars can be charged in up to 8 minutes. If this is really done through the research around the project, it will be a breakthrough in the speed of supplying electric cars.
Magda Titirici, a researcher at Imperial College London, confirms this possibility. Meanwhile, Wyatt Tenteeff, a researcher at the University of Rochester, New York (USA), warns against the production of anodes.
The replacement of graphite by lignin will require many adaptations, so that the new batteries for electric cars made with trees are commercially viable and provide an extra source of income.
