I’ve been writing about batteries and related trends for a long time. Old timers will remember my battery blog (optimistically) called ​“This Week in Batteries,” which over time has met the fate of nickel-cadmium batteries (i.e., gone into obscurity).

The blog was squarely aimed at an audience that was interested in technology and often even worked in the space, but was not completely embedded in the field. The goal was to ​“bring everyone along” in the energy transition and educate them on the nuances of the technology, distilling complex concept into simple terms.

In the early days of the blog, we covered the economics and performance challenges with electric vehicle (EV) and grid storage, provided a primer on different kinds of batteries, and explained the best way to use them to maximize life.

Fifteen years ago, these are the topics that general audiences were curious about.

Supply chain

Fast forward to today, and many consumers have become battery savants. Message groups populated by EV owners, battery enthusiasts, and stockholders of battery technology companies regularly expound on the impact of charging to full capacity and frequent fast charging (summary: not a good idea). They also delve into the numerous manufacturing challenges with solid-state batteries (too many to list), and the state-of-charge estimation challenges with lithium ferrous phosphate batteries (please don’t just measure voltage; keep track of charge instead).

Today, the issue that is front and center is the battery supply chain challenge, considering the increasing demand and the lack of U.S. manufacturing. The change in focus is also because the battery research community is transitioning to solve the emerging challenges to ensure that technology meets the demands for the future. — Venkat Srinivasan, ACCESS Director

As the public has become more attuned to the field, the subject of my writing has changed. Today, the issue that is front and center is the battery supply chain challenge, considering the increasing demand and the lack of U.S. manufacturing. The change in focus is also because the battery research community is transitioning to solve the emerging challenges to ensure that technology meets the demands for the future.

The supply chain challenge is two-fold: (i) the lack of critical battery minerals, especially nickel and cobalt in the U.S., and (ii) the lack of refining capacity that can take advantage of the minerals we do have, such as lithium. Alleviating these challenges requires building the refining capacity to the extent possible. But this by itself is not enough.

Recycling could, in theory, lead to increase the supply and ultimately even make for a fully circular economy. But this is a decade or so away because there are not enough recycled feeds to match the demand, assuming we solve challenges such as the leakage of material outside the U.S. Further, the high cost to recycle minerals like lithium means that further R&D is needed. Research continues at the ReCell Center located at Argonne National Laboratory, for example, to do just that.

Substitute materials

In addition to these efforts, a big part of the R&D community is embarking on finding substitute materials that can minimize and ultimately eliminate the need for these critical elements. The need for alternatives will help both in the short-term and in the long-term. While light duty passenger cars are the biggest demand for batteries now and in the future, the need to electrify beyond light duty vehicles will spur innovations into alternate batteries that possess higher energy density.

The demand for alternates is even more acute for the grid, with a severe lack of lithium battery supply for that market, combined with concerns about the cost effectiveness of that technology for applications such as diurnal, multi-day, and seasonal storage. These emerging markets for batteries will continue to push the technology to new areas and provide opportunities to diversify the supply chain further.

The emerging market for batteries in these various markets—the material, components, cells, and recycling challenges that limit us today, and the opportunities for energy storage to enable widespread electrification of our economy—was the subject of an Argonne-hosted conference that the lab co-organized with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Evolving technology

Argonne is also working to enable a diverse set of materials that could serve as a replacement for current lithium-ion. This winter 2024 edition of the ACCESS newsletter highlights three examples of such R&D, including efforts to enable multivalent batteries based on zinc metal that could hold the key to sustainable, low-cost batteries of the future. We also note efforts to develop coatings for solid-state batteries that bring together expertise from across the lab, linking discovery research with manufacturing and scale-up considerations.

Lastly, we highlight some of the foundational research in sodium-ion batteries, a topic that has taken on increased importance because of the recent cost fluctuations for lithium. This chemistry is considered a hedge against such market dynamics, helping remove some of the dependence on a single mineral. In addition, despite its lower energy density, there is real hope that sodium-ion would be lower cost than lithium-ion, while eliminating the use of critical materials. Argonne has been working on sodium-ion battery chemistry long before it became fashionable, and one of our stories highlights this effort. 

The discussion around sodium-ion serves as a notable illustration of the increasing public understanding and interest in battery-related subjects. Just last year, the New York Times devoted an entire article to China’s efforts to lead in this technology. It’s clear our understanding of these matters has evolved significantly.

The research community continues to strive to educate the public about the critical need for battery technology and the emerging trends. My colleague and friend Shirley Meng recently sat down with a social media science communicator to do just that, covering multiple topics with a pop culture twist. 

I can’t wait to see how battery technology, and the ongoing public conversation, will evolve over the next fifteen years.