Sustainable and Low-Cost Lithium-Ion Batteries: Nonconventional Electrode Chemistries and State of Health Characterization

With the advancements in portable electronics and electric vehicle (EV) applications, the demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with high energy densities is ever increasing. Battery-powered transportation is being adopted more frequently due to its potential to enable a more sustainable society by reducing vehicle emissions from fossil fuels. There has been exponential growth in the need for high-capacity LIBs in all types of EVs, including hybrid and full electric automobiles, e-bikes, and drones, as well as electric tools, cell phones, tablets, and, more recently, house storage; this growth significantly increases the consumption of source material commodities, especially cobalt. Despite its drop in price in the last couple of years due to increased mining, cobalt remains expensive, and its price increase has gained momentum again compared to other electrode materials due to higher demand. Moreover, its toxicity and difficult mining practices could result in many problems, including excessive carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emission along with a possible much higher demand in the long term. This provides a strong motivation to explore alternatives to battery source materials. In this article, we present a selection of our important works on LIBs, with a focus on alternative electrode chemistries by using abundant and sustainable material sources. As alternatives to traditional graphite-based anodes, we demonstrate the successful use of both silicon electrodes derived from beach sand and waste glass and carbon electrodes derived from portobello mushroom and waste plastic precursors. In addition, we demonstrate stable cycling of batteries with nonconventional electrode chemistries, such as lithium-sulfur with TiO2-coated sulfur electrodes and sulfur-silicon full cell batteries with integrated lithium sources. Batteries prepared by sustainable methods not only perform better than conventional ones but also result in reduced costs. Since accurate determination of battery state of health is another important challenge, we further present our electrochemical impedance spectroscopy-based analysis of LIBs, which could potentially be utilized in safety evaluations of current and next-generation LIBs.