Existing lithium-based battery technologies rely on critical minerals with constrained global supply chains, high costs and notable environmental impacts. Sodium-ion batteries are a more sustainable, cheaper and energy secure alternative that do not require critical minerals. Prof Magda Titirici is a world leader in sustainable carbon materials and sodium-ion batteries.
This team is developing and manufacturing hard carbon materials for anodes in sodium-ion batteries, sustainably grown from bio-sources, with excellent performance: high specific capacity, high initial Columbic efficiency, notable cyclability and impressive rate performance. The team is presently demonstrating production at scale.
The sodium-ion anode market is forecast to reach $5bn by 2035 requiring 350kt carbon anode material.