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- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(author)
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Potential improvements of the life cycle environmental impacts of a Li/S battery cell
- 2018
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The lithium sulfur (Li/S) battery is a promising battery chemistry for two reasons: it requires no scarce metals apart from the lithium itself and it brings the promise of high specific energy density at the cell level. However, the environmental impacts of this battery type remain largely unstudied. In this study, we conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the production of an Li/S cell to calculate these impacts. The anode consists of a lithium foil and the cathode consists of a carbon/sulfur composite. The electrolyte is a mixture of dioxalane, dimethoxyethane, lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) and lithium nitrate. The current collector for the cathode is an aluminium foil and a tri-layer membrane of polypropylene and polyethylene acts as separator. The functional unit of the study is 1 kWh specific energy storage. Three key environmental impacts were considered: energy use, climate change and lithium requirement. In our baseline scenario, we consider the pilot-scale production of a battery with a specific energy of 300 kWh/kg, having the mesoporous material CMK-3 as carbon material in the carbon/sulfur cathode, and using coal power and natural gas heat as energy sources. This scenario results in an energy use of 580 kWh/kWhstored and a climate change impact of 230 kg CO2eq/kWhstored. The main contributor to energy use is the LiTFSI production and the main contributor to climate change is electricity use during cell production. We then model a number of possible improvements sequentially: (1) reduction of cell production electricity requirement due to production at industrial-scale, (2) sourcing of electricity and heat from renewable instead of fossil sources (i.e. solar power and biogas heat), (3) improvement of the specific energy of the Li/S cell to 500 kWh/kg and (4) a shift of the carbon material in the cathode to carbon black (without considering changes in performance). By implementing all these four improvements, energy use and climate change impact can be reduced by an impressive 54 and 93%, respectively. In particular, the improvements related to industrial-scale production and sourcing of renewable energy are considerable, whereas the shift of carbon material is of minor importance. For climate change, the best-case result of 17 kg CO2eq/kWhstored is similar to the best-case results reported in the scientific literature for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Regarding lithium requirement, the lithium metal requirement of Li/S batteries and LIBs are also of similar magnitude (0.33-0.55 kg/kWhstored and 0.2 kg/kWhstored, respectively). Using different allocation approaches did not alter the main conclusions of the study.
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| 2. |
- Wickerts, Sanna, 1992, et al.
(author)
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Energy storage with less metal scarcity? Prospective life cycle assessment of lithium-sulfur batteries with a focus on mineral resources.
- 2021
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In order to reduce the global dependency on fossil fuels by adopting renewable energy technologies and advancing electromobility, batteries are a key technology. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are currently the dominant rechargeable battery technology, mainly due to their high energy density. However, most LIBs contain a number of geochemically scarce metals, e.g.cobalt, lithium and nickel. The production of LIBs is furthermore associated with considerable environmental impacts. Battery researchers and companies therefore try to develop the next generation batteries (NGBs) with the same or even higher energy densities than LIBs, while requiring less of scarce metals and causing lower environmental impacts. One promising NGB technology is the lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery, with a potential to significantly improve energy density as compared to current state-of-the-art LIBs. Although Li-S batteries still face a number of scientific and technical challenges, they have a significant advantage over LIBs from a resource point of view: the cells do not require any scarce metals besides lithium. Using prospective life cycle assessment, we will assess the life-cycle environmental impacts of Li-S batteries and compare them to those of LIBs, both modeled at large-scale production. In order to investigate the effect of using less scarce metals on resource impacts, the mineral resource impact category will be given extra attention. We will therefore include a range of mineral resource impact assessment methods, e.g. the abiotic depletion indicator, the surplus ore indicator, and the recently developed crustal scarcity indicator, which takes an explicit long-term perspective on elemental resources in the Earth’s crust. The overall aim is thus to compare the prospective life-cycle impacts of this particular NGB to those of LIBs, with a focus on mineral resources.
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| 3. |
- Wickerts, Sanna, 1992, et al.
(author)
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How environmentally friendly are batteries with no rare or critical materials?
- 2022
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Rechargeable batteries are increasingly used in a number of applications, such as consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and stationary energy storage. An increased use in the latter two applications is envisioned to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.However, the dominant rechargeable battery technology – the lithium-ion battery (LIB) – impacts the environment in several ways throughout its life cycle. In addition, LIBs require critical and/or geochemically scarce materials, such as lithium, natural graphite, and sometimes nickel and cobalt. One promising next generation battery (NGB) is the sodium-ion battery (SIB). While other NGBs can provide higher energy densities, the SIB technology holds great promise from a resource point of view, since it can be made to contain mostly low-cost, abundant and readily available elements, such as sodium and iron. In addition, the manufacturing processes and equipment developed for LIBs can in principle be re-used, enabling convenient scale-up of production. We here assess the life-cycle impacts of a specific SIB with a low content of scarce metals using prospective life cycle assessment (LCA). The SIB is assumed to be a mature technology produced at large scale and this we accomplish by using data from a small-scale producer and scale these up using available large-scale factory data for LIB production. We use a functional unit of 1 kWh of installed battery cell storage capacity and focus on climate and mineral resource impacts, since those have been highlighted in several publications and guidance documents as particularly important to address in LCAs of batteries. Different shares of renewables are considered in energy supply scenarios, along with scenarios for specific energy density developments. The impacts are compared to those of large-scale produced LIBs and to another NGB – the lithium-sulfur battery. To investigate mineral resource impacts of the different technologies in depth, we include two resource impact assessment methods, the crustal scarcity indicator and the surplus ore potential. The aims of the study are (i) to assess the prospective life cycle impacts of the SIB technology in order to reveal whether it is preferable to other battery technologies from an environmental and resource point of view, and (ii) to understand the environmental profile of the SIB in order to identify hotspots.
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| 4. |
- Edstrom, K., et al.
(author)
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The NordBatt Conferences: The Journey so Far and the Future Ahead
- 2023
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In: Batteries and Supercaps. - 2566-6223. ; 6:11
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- All great things have humble beginnings. In 2013 when NordBatt started, we had no lithium-ion battery manufacturing in the Nordic countries and we had rather few EVs on the roads, although things were clearly starting to move – Tesla Model S in fact topped the monthly new car sales of Norway in September that very year. Yet, even if the field was advancing and lively, relatively few Nordic research groups were doing any kind of battery R&D. Now, in 2023, almost everything is different; batteries and “electrify everything” are seen, not only by us, as the next industrial revolution – it is a topic gathering considerably many more actors in academia as well as in the whole ecosystem of batteries.
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| 7. |
- Johansson, Patrik, 1969, et al.
(author)
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Interpretation of infrared and Raman spectra assisted by computational chemistry
- 2010
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In: Spectroscopy Europe. - 0966-0941. ; 22:2, s. 14-17
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A study was conducted to interpret infrared and Raman spectra assisted by computational chemistry. The Raman spectrum of the room temperature ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium tetra-fluoroborate [BMI][BF4] was shown and the task of band assignment for the experimental spectrum was simple. The computational chemistry was found to be helpful in creating a set of models, including atomic coordinates for the cation in different conformational states. Each vibrational mode was considered to be completely decoupled from all other modes and each movement from the equilibrium atomic distances to be harmonic to prevent the computational chemistry from becoming complex.
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| 8. |
- Johansson, Patrik, 1969, et al.
(author)
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Lithium–Sulfur Battery Electrolytes
- 2017
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In: Li-S Batteries: The Challenges, Chemistry, Materials and Future Perspectives. ; , s. 149-194
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The electrolyte is at the very heart of any battery concept physically, but more and more also mentally amongst battery researchers and developers. This is largely due to the growing insight that many problems related to overall efficiency, life-length, and safety often originate in the electrolyte. This is perhaps even more a truth for the Lithium-Sulfur (Li–S) battery technology and hence large efforts are today focused on novel Li–S battery electrolytes — materials as well as concepts. In this chapter we will start by summarizing the similarities and differences in demands and design as compared to the Li-ion battery (LIB) technology, as the latter is more familiar to most readers. We then move to two large sections of liquid and solid electrolytes, respectively, outlining the materials and methods used. In each of the sections we point to a few specific topics and how these are researched today, keeping the comparison with the LIB as a way to more easily understand the unique features/issues/problems that electrolytes for Li–S batteries are facing. The chapter is made at a level and limited to a scope where the open literature is sufficient and plentiful, but of course studying the patent literature and gaining the hidden industry know-how may definitively extend the scope for the interested reader. Overall we hope that after reading this chapter, armed with a basic knowledge of the types of electrolytes and the materials presently in use in Li–S batteries, it will be easier for the reader to understand the needs, limitations, problems, but also the possibilities. This should finally open for suggestions of how to rationally improve the electrolytes with in the end enhanced performance of future Li–S batteries.
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| 9. |
- Johansson, Patrik, 1969
(author)
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Making the invisible visible
- 2017
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In: Nature Energy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2058-7546. ; 2:6, s. 17076-
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The presence of polysulfides in Li-S batteries significantly affects battery operation, but their presence and reaction mechanisms are not well understood. Now, an operando X-ray diffraction approach is used to directly observe these polysulfides, offering insights on their formation and evolution.
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| 10. |
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