THE FUTURE IS NOT LITHIUM

BY TARUN SIVAKUMAR

Lithium ion batteries emit large amounts of CO2 during the mining and manufacturing phases. Their disposal and recycling, too, are environmentally problematic. The author proposes an alternative source of power.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the typical internal-combustion engine vehicle (ICE) produces six to nine tons of greenhouse gasses per year. These emissions amount to 1.6 billion tons of greenhouse gas released into the atmosphere each year. While the majority of these gas emissions consist of carbon dioxide, all contribute to climate change. 1 Climate change, a very real problem facing our current generation, will continue for decades until its damaging effects are fully reversed.

Currently, the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is the transportation sector, accounting for nearly 17 percent of emissions in 2018.2 This number grew exponentially over the past few decades as human dependence on energy consumption increased.3 Specifically, transportation-related emissions rose 250 percent since 1970, faster than any other energy-use sector. Much of this change can be attributed to the sheer size of the transportation industry, growing rapidly in a short period of time as society evolved around the success of the automobile.4

In order to curb the permanent effects of ICE vehicles on the environment, many organizations, including the U.S. government, now promote the purchase of electric vehicles (EVs) as an alternative that allows consumers to make a tangible difference.5 However, are electric vehicles as environmentally friendly as they are claimed to be? Despite having no tailpipe emissions, the production of EVs depends on manufacturing large numbers of lithium-ion batteries to power these vehicles, and this battery production itself releases vast amounts of carbon dioxide.

Ultimately, the commercialization of electric vehicles has exposed the inefficiencies and dangers of using lithium-ion batteries. As a result, the four major manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries: Ganfeng Lithium, Panasonic, Livent, and Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited should partner with current research universities developing organic polypeptide batteries in order to increase their scalability— so that these new batteries can be sold as a viable sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries.

WHY NOT LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES?

Lithium ion batteries have been a revolutionary form of technology since their commercialization in 1992 — their growth allowed for the rapid expansion of battery packs and electric vehicles. However, this expansion also raised concerns over mineral sourcing and its environmental impact. Currently, lithium-ion batteries require cobalt, a toxic metal that has also been linked to human rights violations. Specifically, 60 percent of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and mining operations there have prompted allegations of human rights abuses. Further along the value chain, at the end of its useful life, a lithium-ion battery faces high economic and energy costs when trying to be recycled, causing very few batteries (often in singledigit percentages) to be recycled, driving up the demand for extraction of more raw materials.6

Yang Shao-Horn, JR East Professor of Engineering in the MIT Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, explains that “producing lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles is more material-intensive than producing traditional combustion engines, and the demand for battery materials is rising.”7 Furthermore, she explains that the energy used to extract lithium from hard rock mines and underground brine reservoirs emits fossil fuels where, for every ton of lithium mined, 15 tons of CO2 are released into the atmosphere.8

Still, extracting lithium accounts for only part of its full impact on the environment— manufacturing the batteries also contributes to global warming. Shao-Horn explains that synthesizing the materials needed to produce a lithium-ion battery requires heat between 800 to 1,000 degrees Celsius. These high temperatures can only be cost-effectively reached by burning fossil fuels, which also adds to CO2 emissions.9 Furthermore, about 77 percent of the world’s supply of lithiumion batteries are manufactured in China where the primary source of energy for the manufacturing is coal, which emits almost twice as much greenhouse gas compared to natural gas usage.10 For example, a popular electric vehicle in the United States, the Tesla Model 3, uses an 80 kWh lithium-ion battery.

Manufacturing the battery in this vehicle emits anywhere from 3 to 16 tons of CO2 11 The negative effects of lithium-ion batteries run counter to both sustainability and human rights efforts.

ORGANIC BATTERIES, AN ALTERNATIVE

An emerging proposed alternative to lithium-ion batteries is an organic polypeptide redox-active battery, named for its reduction of working fluids and reversible oxidation approach, and discovered by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Texas A&M University. 12 These organic radical batteries (ORBs) are metal-free and can degrade on demand without releasing toxic chemicals into the environment.13 Essentially, these batteries work by incorporating viologens (a form of organic salt) and nitroxide radicals as redox-active groups along with polypeptide backbones which function as anode and cathode materials, respectively. Functionally, these redox-active polypeptides are active materials that are stable during battery operation but subsequently degrade on demand in acidic environments, turning into amino acids and other degradation products that are environmentally benign and may be recyclable for reconstruction into a new battery.14 While being environmentally efficient, another key characteristic of these organic batteries is their “greater theoretical capacities than conventional lithium-ion batteries because their use of organic materials renders them lightweight.”15

Additional research is needed to reach the full capacity of these batteries, as only onethird of their potential has been achieved in simulations. 16 During discovery, scientists used a small organic molecule, croconic acid. The use of croconic acid allows the battery to have an exceptionally high theoretical capacity of 638.6 mAh/g, which is much higher than the conventional lithium-ion battery cathode materials (~140 mAh/g).17

Although there are currently no cost estimates associated with this organic battery, because it lacks expensive metals and only relies on organic compounds, one can project it will be cheaper to manufacture than its lithiumion battery alternative, especially when brought to scale. However, there is currently no method in place to manufacture these organic batteries on a large enough scale to take away market share from lithiumion batteries— so they have not been fully implemented in battery platforms. Despite the unrealized potential of this novel battery, new discoveries move us closer to creating highenergy, environmentally-friendly, metal-free, inexpensive organic batteries for the masses. Furthermore, there is a significant increase in demand projected for EVs that will be accompanied by a sharp demand in battery technology to fuel these vehicles. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global market for electric vehicles was valued at ~$287 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to ~$1,318 billion in 2028 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.3 percent in the forecast period. 18 Comparatively, the lithium-ion conservative models concluded a 20 percent annual growth in lithium-ion battery waste, reaching more than 136,000 tons by 2036.20 Currently, only about 5 percent of lithiumion batteries are actually recycled due to the perceived complexity of the process, meaning that the other 95 percent are left for waste disposal. battery recycling market is expected to grow from ~$11 billion in 2020 to ~$67 billion in 2030, a CAGR of 19.5 percent in the forecast period.19

Using this data, the EV market is growing faster than the lithium-ion recycling market, meaning the amount of lithium-ion batteries that will be disposed of is expected to increase in the future, resulting in a corresponding increase in environmental toxic waste. The Australian Department of the Environment recently commissioned a study on the future volume of lithium-ion waste, and their daily

However, lithium batteries “contain a flammable electrolyte that can result in fire or even explosions if they are punctured, damaged, or heated. The high-energy content and active nature of li-ion batteries make it dangerous to dispose of them in regular waste.”21 Evidently, lithium-ion batteries are not being recycled at the levels needed to mitigate damage to the environment, and this situation will only continue to worsen in the future. As a result, there will be demand from both environmentalists and purchasers of electric vehicles as they prioritize global greenhouse emission reduction and degradable batteries that can further advance sustainability efforts.

WHAT CAN BUSINESSES DO?

There are four major corporations that play a vital role in the lithium-ion battery industry: Ganfeng Lithium, a leading Chinese lithium mining company that has evolved into refining and processing lithium, battery manufacturing, and recycling; Panasonic, a top-3 global EV battery manufacturer based in Japan; Livent, a top-5 lithium producer from the US; and Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL), a top-3 EV battery manufacturer from China. 22 At its essence, these manufacturers extract the metal from the earth as raw material, move the material into a chemical conversion process to produce lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide, and then combine carbonate or hydroxide with other materials to form a cathode and an anode, together forming an individual battery cell. Thousands of cells are then combined to create a battery pack for an EV.23 These manufacturers are currently the face of the lithium-ion battery industry, and therefore have the opportunity to reimagine the products they sell, particularly as 95 percent of all lithium batteries reach the end of their life-cycle after only one use. More specifically, these manufacturers can start selling organic batteries for EVs once viable and once demand for lithium-ion batteries is replaced by demand for more sustainable alternatives. Eventually, a circular economy for batteries can be created.

These four companies should invest in current research and develop organic polypeptide batteries as these new sustainable products can replace the aging toxic lithiumion battery. As the demand for EVs increases in the future, demand for batteries, especially sustainable ones which can be recycled easily, will increase alongside vehicle sales. Investing in the development of these new organic batteries is an excellent opportunity for current major manufacturers of lithiumion batteries to shift their products to align with future demand, so as to remain profitable while also helping sustainability efforts at the same time. An investment from these companies is primarily needed to accelerate research, allow production of these organic batteries, and bring battery manufacture to scale so that they can be integrated and marketed as the primary alternative to lithium-ion batteries.

There is current funding available from the National Science Foundation, the Welch Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science and researchers at Texas A&M University are using this grant money toward machine learning that will optimize the materials to structure this battery platform. 24 There is, however, no current funding available to commercialize the product and start mass production. This situation presents an opportunity to corporations like Ganfeng Lithium, Panasonic, Livent, and Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, allowing them to partner with universities developing