More Energy, Less Carbon Dioxide – New Battery Tech’s Multi-Pronged Approach to Sustainability

Battery Or Carbon Capture? Why Not Both?

The push for green energy and electrification is mostly motivated by the need to reduce carbon emissions in the context of climate change. However, solar and wind power are inherently intermittent.

So, the more green energy powers the grid, the more utility-scale batteries are needed to store energy during peak production and redistribute it to the grid at a later date. Utility-scale batteries are likely going to use very different chemistries than EVs, as they are not working under the same constraints:

• No need for high-density or lightweight, utility batteries can be stored on the ground at power plants or dedicated sites.
• Extreme sensibility to total cost (construction + operations).
• Need to use cheap and abundant materials to be deployed at scale, foregoing metals like cobalt, platinum, palladium, etc, (or ideally even lithium).
• Need for a very long lifespan with no capacity degradation, ideally in the range of several decades.

It is something we previously explored in depth in our article “The Future Of Energy Storage – Utility-Scale Batteries Tech“, where we listed most of the possible chemistries in development for this application.

All of these batteries operate in order to make green energy more economically viable and widely adopted, which would reduce carbon emissions. However, none contribute directly to reducing emissions or capturing carbon.

Even so-called CO2 batteries would re-emit the CO2 once electricity is discharged.

This could change, thanks to a groundbreaking new battery design, which could be not only storing energy but also producing hydrogen and durably capturing carbon.

Carbon-Capture Batteries

Carbon capture is the idea of taking normally emitted CO2 and turning it back into useful products. You can read more about the various carbon capture technologies in this article by Energy Tracker.

Until now, such a process was something to add on top of industrial processes and represented an extra cost with no practical product but the capture of carbon. The process itself was not useful.

We discussed the current state of carbon capture in more detail in our article “Top 5 Carbon Capture Stocks To Invest In”.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory might have found a way to make carbon capture an integral part of the green energy power grid and associated batteries. They published their findings in the Journal of Power Sources, under the title “Origin of deactivation of aqueous Na–CO2 battery and mitigation for long-duration energy storage”.

Previous Concept Upgraded

The carbon-capture battery is an upgrade from conventional metal-CO2 that cycles in and out CO2 while oxidizing a metal (M), which can be sodium (Na), lithium (Li), or magnesium (Mg): CO2 ↔ MxCO3.

A recurring issue of metal-CO2 batteries is the deposition of solid discharge products such as M2CO3(s) (M = Li or Na), Al2(C2O4)3(s), or MgCO3(s) onto the electrode surface often leads to clogging of the porous electrode structure.

This clogging negatively affects the battery, quickly reducing its capacity.

To overcome this problem, the researchers developed two potential batteries, one relying on sodium and the other on aluminum, both abundant and low-cost materials.

The Na-CO2 battery relies on an iron-nickel catalyst, which is much cheaper than most catalysts in the industry.

Contrary to previous designs, the new CO2 battery does not release CO2 in a gaseous form, but instead, the carbonate byproduct dissolves in the liquid electrolyte.

These carbonates can then be either kept in the battery or collected when they accumulate and precipitate in solid form. The pharmaceutical or cement industry can then use them.

The only gases released are oxygen and hydrogen, which do not contribute to climate change and can even be captured to produce energy or fuel.

 

Overcoming Engineering Challenges

This idea seems so impressive that it might be a surprise that it has not been done before.

The reason is that making it happen in practice had to overcome a few technical issues.

First, the electrodes must be separated in wet and dry chambers with a solid ion conductor between them. The conductor slowed down electron movement, reducing the battery efficiency.

Secondly, this type of Na-CO2 battery is not immune to the CO2 battery issue of film depositing on the electrode. However, the researchers found, using very advanced microscopes and X-ray machines, that uneven charging and discharging pulses prevented film buildup on the electrode.

“We are reporting for the first time that the deactivated cell can be reactivated.

And we found the origin of the deactivation and activation. If you symmetrically charge-discharge the battery too long, it’s dead at one stage. If you use the protocol we established for our cell, the chance of failure is very slim.”

Ruhul Amin – the lead researcher on the project

Maybe even more impressively, these batteries can capture the CO2 using the stored energy, so not when renewable energy production is spiking, giving it more flexibility. It could also make it a perfect match to capture carbon from peaker power plants relying on fossil fuels to produce power when the wind is weak or the sun is not shining.

Moving To Commercial Design

With proof of concept of a CO2 battery that could be reactivated, the team went on to improve performance to match the requirements of a viable utility-scale battery.

For this, they developed an Al-CO2 battery around the same principle as the Na-CO2 prototype.

The prototype achieved remarkable results, notably:

• 600 hours (25 days) operation without losing capacity.
• Enough storage for more than 10 hours of electricity to be used later.

What’s Next?

Using seawater as the aqueous medium can strongly improve the speed of the battery and the hydrogen+oxygen production by creating bleach from the chlorine atoms in the water. So, this battery might work with even more useful byproducts than initially expected.

Another challenge will be to bring the aluminum-CO2 battery design to a larger scale fit for a real utility-scale deployment.

Another work in progress is to go back to the Sodium-CO2 battery and develop a very fine, dense, mechanically stable ceramic membrane to separate the battery chambers to make the battery commercially competitive.

Batteries Companies

Due to their previous limitations, there is little in the way of CO2 battery companies. However, innovative battery companies with a history of quickly adopting new technology will be able to leverage progress in the field to develop new chemistries if needed.

1. BYD Company Limited (BYDDF)

BYD is the leading EV company in China, with 1,860,000 vehicles sold in 2022, €20B in revenues in 2022, and one of the largest private companies in the country.

The company started as the first supplier of lithium-ion batteries to Motorola in 2000 and entered the automotive business as early as 2003. Today, it is also active in buses, trains, semiconductors, and battery energy storage.

Thanks to its sheer size, “BYD Surpassed LG to Become the World’s Second-Largest EV Battery Supplier”

Beyond the EV market, BYD, like Tesla, is looking to utilize its outsize battery supply for other markets. It notably launched the Battery-Box for residential usage, using cobalt-free Lithium Iron Phosphate chemistry. It also offers its New Energy package, combining solar and storage solutions.

Bringing together Battery-Box and New Energy, BYD Energy Storage System (ESS) has shipped more than 14 GWh of storage capacity.

BYD owns the complete supply chain layout from mineral battery cells to battery packs. This helped it set up its own proprietary recycling solution, using old car batteries as fixed storage or full battery recycling through a new subdivision in 2022.

BYD is now expanding overseas, especially in Europe, with plans to quadruple its still small market share, as well as local production in Hungary, with a 150,000-vehicle-a-year capacity that could be doubled to 300,000. This could pressure local manufacturers and Tesla, with a price tag now in the range of fuel-powered cars.

Expansion in the US is more cautious as the US-China rivalry keeps escalating, with a 100% tariff imposed on Chinese cars in Spring 2024.

With strong growth prospects in South America, Asia and Europe, as well as a dominant position in China, the leading market for EVs, BYD”s stock is the less famous and lower valuation  multiples alternative to Tesla.

2. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (300750.SZ)

Chinese CATL is by far the largest battery company in the world if judged by the volume of batteries. It produced in 2022 almost half of the world’s batteries by GWh.

It also has some of the most advanced lithium iron phosphate batteries, which might be a solution for creating cheaper and “dense enough” batteries for low-cost EVs.

CATL’s expertise in battery chemistry extends to other options as well. Notably, the impressive 160 Wh/kg Sodium-ion battery was announced in 2021. Replacing lithium with abundant and cheap sodium offers an alternative to lithium, whose price has been very volatile and high in recent years. And for applications still requiring lithium, CATL is also investing $1.4B to develop lithium production in Bolivia.

But when it comes to battery performance, CATL is at the very forefront of progress. First, it announced a 330 Wh/ kg ultra-durable “million miles” battery that charges to 80% in 5 minutes and is ready for commercialization. This battery should be used by Tesla in the future and will be the new standard for high-performance EVs.

It also recently announced a record-breaking 500 Wh/kg “condensed” battery, which would be dense enough to power long-range EVs and planes. It also claims to have found a way to make batteries handle cold weather better, but this is still a weakness of the technology and a problem for EVs in cold countries.

Leaders in EVs like Tesla and BYD, or ambitious new entries like Toyota, might look to develop their own battery technology as a unique advantage. But the rest of the auto industry, including German, American, and Japanese automakers, are looking for partners to keep up in the race for advanced batteries. This notably includes Ford, Nio, BAIC, Volvo & BMW, Honda, and Mercedes Benz.

CATL has the production volume to benefit the most from economies of scale in battery manufacturing. Its large sales volume also feeds directly into scientific expertise and a large R&D budget, allowing for more breakthroughs. By not being an automaker, it is also a better partner for most of the industry than their direct competitors like BYD and Tesla.

For now, the company has been mostly focused on EVs. It might turn toward utility-scale batteries as China’s renewable energy production grows and the technology matures.

Altogether, this makes a compelling argument for CATL to remain the world’s leader in battery production. However, the rising tensions between the US and China should not be completely forgotten, and its stock might get caught in the middle of the power struggle between the 2 largest economies in the world.