Remember Stora Enso, the Helsinki-based renewable materials company I told you about in this post? It is powering electric vehicles using batteries made from trees, to be exact by harnessing lignin.
It is there in every tree 20 to 30% lignin: it is a natural binder that gives wood its rigidity, and allows it to resist decay. Today it can become a biological alternative to the fossil fuels and gas that drives vehicles these days.
How are lignin batteries obtained?
Stora Enso explains that lignin is separated from wood during the production of cellulose fibres. Once mined, it is refined into a fine powder, which serves as the active material for a battery's negative anode.
Operation is the same as that of a normal lithium-ion battery. There is a positive electrode, a cathode and a negative electrode called the anode. Normal batteries often contain graphite, a material that limits charging times and produces emissions that are harmful to the environment.
By replacing this (fossil-based) graphite with lignin powder refined from trees, the company ensures that electric vehicles can benefit from both environmental and performance improvements.
Commercialization in Europe is near
Stora Enso's pilot plant is already operational to supply and produce these “tree-derived” batteries. Lignin can be used not only in car batteries, but also those in consumer electronics, or in large-scale energy storage systems.
“With Lignode, we can provide a bio-based, cost-competitive, high-performance material to replace graphite,” he says Markus Mannstrom, executive vice president of the Biomaterials division of Stora Enso.
To serve the fast growing anode materials market, we are exploring strategic partnerships to accelerate scale-up and commercialization in Europe.
If that doesn't mean hindering reforestation, so be it.
