Sustainable Battery with Lignin

The ThüNaBsE project is conducting research into sodium-ion batteries. A by-product from the wood industry is to be used as the electrode material.

With the aim of reducing dependence on raw materials and developing cheaper, more sustainable, and safer batteries, Fraunhofer researchers and their partners plan to develop and evaluate a novel sodium-ion battery using lignin. In the "ThüNaBsE" (Thuringian sodium battery for scalable energy storage) project, lignin, a by-product of the wood and pulp industry, is to be used as electrode material for batteries. According to Dr. Lukas Medenbach, a scientist at Fraunhofer IKTS in Arnstadt, the gateway to the Thuringian Forest, the core of the project is the processing of locally available, high-quality lignin into high-performance electrodes in sodium-ion batteries.

The lignin for the "Thuringian Forest Battery" is provided by Mercer Rosenthal GmbH and converted into so-called "hard carbon" in the absence of air. The carbon is then further processed into electrodes. The structure of this hard carbon is very well suited for storing sodium ions in a reversible manner. Hard carbon therefore offers high electrochemical performance and good cycle stability at low acquisition costs. Prussian blue analogues are to be used as the material for the positive electrode.

Sustainable Batteries for Micromobility

The first small demonstration cells are currently being built and tested at the Fraunhofer IKTS battery test center in Arnstadt, at the Fraunhofer IKTS in Hermsdorf, and at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, supported by multiphysical simulations. "After 100 charging and discharging cycles, the lab cell shows no significant degradation. The aim is to demonstrate 200 charging and discharging cycles for the 1-Ah full cell by the end of the project", says Dr. Medenbach. The lignin-based sodium-ion batteries are suitable for mobile applications with lower power requirements, such as microcars or industrial trucks such as forklifts.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS) and Friedrich Schiller University Jena – both partners of the Center for Energy and Environmental Chemistry (CEEC) – are involved in the project. Other participants include the Thuringian companies Mercer Rosenthal GmbH, Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH, IBU-tec advanced materials AG, and EAS Batteries GmbH, as well as Petrochemical Holding GmbH from Vienna. It is funded by the Free State of Thuringia and the European Social Fund.

This is a partly automated translation of this German article.