Beyond Li-ion: challenges and opportunities for future battery technology

On the evening of 25 November 2021 RSC Belgium hosted the last of its webinars for the year with a talk from Prof Jean-François Gohy from the Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences at the Université catholique de Louvain. Prof Gohy had previously presented to the section on advances in energy storage and this new talk focused on recent advances and opportunities for future battery technologies. 

The improvement in performance and cost of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) over the past few years have made them the technology of choice for electrical energy storage. While established battery chemistries and cell architectures for LIBs achieve good power and energy density, Jean-Francois indicated that LIBs are unlikely to meet all the performance, cost, and scaling targets required for future energy storage, in particular, in large-scale applications such as electrified transportation and grids. 

The demand to further reduce cost and/or increase energy density, as well as the growing concerns related to natural resource needs for Li-ion technologies have accelerated the investigation of so-called “beyond Li-ion” technologies. In his talk Prof Gohy discussed recent achievements, challenges, and opportunities for some of these “beyond Li-ion” technologies. While it is unlikely that any given new technology will fully replace Li-ion in the near future, “beyond Li-ion” technologies should be thought of as opportunities for energy storage to grow into mid/large-scale applications.

Range of options

Prof Gohy took the audience through a range of options for promising battery technologies that could provide the required energy density safely and at reasonable cost. Costs for LIBs had dramatically dropped from over $1000 per KWh to less that $150 and this trend was continuing thanks to massive investment LIBs by the car industry.

But next generation technologies were required. Lithium metal batteries are part of the family of All Solid State Batteries (ASSB) and previous significant safety concerns had now been partially solved. Other potential technologies included Li-S, Li-air, Sodium and Potassium ion batteries.

Li-metal based ASSBs could provide a path to achieve high volumetric energy density using established Li-ion cathode technology.

Sodium (NIB) and Potassium (KIB) batteries that rely on naturally abundant sodium and potassium resources are likely to provide a significant advantage in terms of cost for larger stationary applications such as storage for power grid management. 

Magnesium-metal batteries are a wild card technology that could potentially provide a unique combination of high energy density and low cost as a "beyond Li-ion" battery technology. Mg metal as an anode is less prone to failure due to dendritic growth, but the most significant technical barrier to this technology is the achievement of high energy density Mg cathodes.

RSC video at COP26

During the COP26 meeting in Glasgow the RSC held a panel discussion on this topic that debated the cutting edge chemistry underlying next generation battery innovations, their potential, their limitations and their pathways to mass adoption.

The video was part of an initiative demonstrating chemistry’s role in understanding and tackling climate change covering next-generation batteries, hydrogen, agriculture, carbon dioxide utilisation, and more.