Conversion of BIOmass resource from forest industry into hard carbons as greener sodium ion battery ANODE (BIOANODE)

The great concern of global warming and ever-increasing demand for energy has triggered an urgent shift from fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources. Driven by this ongoing clean energy transition, demand for batteries is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. Batteries offer a very tangible opportunity to store and provide energy on demand reliably and swiftly to end users for different applications. As a strategic action area, batteries are expected to play a far more important role than today. And this trend will be reinforced with release and implementation of new and comprehensive legislative and governance frameworks globally and domestically. The BIOANODE project responds to EU and national battery strategies by focusing on sustainable production of affordable biobased anodes for sodium-ion batteries. The project will contribute to the battery production value chain through adapting renewable raw materials, tuning the production process and reducing costs. In BIOANODE, pilot production of biocarbon and anode carbon in kilogram scale is planned, which will be conducted under industrial relevant conditions. A systematic interdisciplinary study and comprehensive material characterization will be conducted to investigate physio-chemical properties and electrochemical performance of the carbon materials produced in the pilot scale production process. For this Innovation project, a postdoc from NTNU will participate in solving R&D challenges, as well as research will be performed by WAI and SINTEF ER.

Developing advanced and environmentally friendly anode materials is a corner stone to enable sustainable, competitive, and innovative battery value chain. The main energy storage technology currently used for electric vehicles and other mobile applications is Li-ion batteries (LIB), which has naturally been the focus for the development of a European battery value chain. However, with the increase in electrification and intermittent renewable energy production, there is also an exponential growth in the need for affordable stationary energy storage. Other battery technologies such as saltwater, redox flow or sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have great potential to fill that gap and be a complimentary solution to LIBs. The BIOANDE project responds EU and national strategies by focusing on sustainable production of affordable biobased anodes for SIBs. The overall objective of the BIOANODE project is to realize conversion of biomass resource from forest industry into hard carbons as anode materials for greener SIB production. The BIOANODE project aims to assess the production process from raw biomass feedstock to the final anode carbon focusing on understanding links between each subprocess and conversion of materials. The results are valuable to bridge state-of-the-art R&D results with industry applications, realize production of greener anode carbon and enable the value chain of the Norwegian battery industry. Anticipated project impacts include reducing high dependence of battery production on petrochemical materials, production of low-costs and high-performance anode materials from sustainable raw feedstock, boosting development and adaption of novel technology in industry sector, accelerate the commercialization of production of high-quality biomass-derived anode materials and increase domestic and international marketability of SIBs.