Sustainable improvements in battery or cell design can be made through materials, electrode or cell developments. Here were discuss the role of cell architectures and the manufacturing steps required to optimise the cell performance of lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries. In all cases the sustainability of the cell chemistry is dependent upon not only the components and the elemental composition of those components, but the life-time performance required for the application and the ability to reclaim, reprocess and reuse those materials. This talk will address aspects of cell composition, electrode manufacturing, formation and recycling with a focus upon sustainability and the circular economy. Natural Graphite is one of the materials on the critical materials list. Graphite composite electrode architectures made from traditional slurry cast methods are compared to a digital deposition methods, where microstructural control of the electrode coatings can be achieved through rheology and formulation in addition to deposition. Long cycle life can be achieved in high coat weight electrodes through optimisation of electrolyte transport pathways. Moving from lithium based anodes to sodium; hard carbon electrode composite electrode formulations are also discussed where additional additives are incorporated into the electrode coating to achieve greater life-time, rate with less sodium dendrite formation over time. In this case the zeolite addition, rather than being a channel for electrolyte transport, these additives control the formation of the interface layer on the hard carbon. This then leads us to the formation and conditioning process, which is the final and most expensive stage of the manufacturing process. The effect of electrolyte additives and formation conditions upon the life-time and operation of the cell are discussed. Using the same cell chemistry and cells designs, in this case a sodium-ion cell chemistry, small changes in the formation protocols can have a large effect upon the performance and the life-time. Finally we discuss some of the aspects of recycling, and reclamation and re-use of some of the critical materials contained within different battery chemistries.

Biography

Prof Emma Kendrick FIMMM FRSC is Chair of Energy Materials in the school of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham, she joined in 2018 as head of the Energy materials group after two years as Reader at WMG, University of Warwick. She has 10 years of industrial research experience in new battery technology research, latterly for SHARP Labs of Europe Ltd (SLE) and prior to that for two SME’s. She holds a PhD from CERAM / Keele University, MSc (Materials) from University of Aberdeen, BSc (Chemistry) from University of Manchester. Her research over the last 20 years has focused on understanding the science behind the transfer and scale-up of novel functional materials into working devices. The current research focuses upon sustainable battery development.

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