Ligna Energy makes wooden battery, a fight against Lithium and Lead

[tridy]

Summary

After ten years of research at Linköping ^{[Lin-sh'oping, with the soft sh]} University, Ligna Energy  is about to launch the wooden battery on the market.

 

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Quotes

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from Google translate:

Wooden batteries from Swedish forests take the fight against lithium and lead

After lead and lithium - now comes the wooden batteries which are almost entirely produced by the Swedish forest. 

Ten years of research at Linköping University resulted in a wooden battery that the company Ligna Energy in the neighboring city of Norrköping is now about to launch on the market.

“Our unique use of lignin is that it is the active battery component of the cathode. We use lignin as the main mass, instead of, for example, lithium or lead, ”explains Peter Ringstad, CEO of Ligna Energy.

Here, Ligna Energy differs from, for example, Northvolt and other lithium-ion manufacturers who see opportunities to replace a smaller part, the graphite-based anodes in their batteries for lignin. 

"We also see opportunities with lignin anodes in our batteries and have a nascent collaboration with another startup, Bright Day Graphene."

...

“We have sold a thousand battery components for IoT applications. We are now working on production scaling where we will manufacture the batteries on a roll. We expect to have that, including supplier networks, ready by next autumn. ”

 

 

My thoughts

They seem to take is quite seriously and I have been hoping for some sort of renewable/recyclable energy to come in order to cope with the growing demand for the electric cars and other devices as well. t this point I have no information if this is something that could be used in the heavier electronics like phones and notebooks but so far I have not seen anything that would have stopped them from doing that. I, personally, have my hopes up!

 

 

Sources

Swedish page: https://www.di.se/hallbart-naringsliv/trabatterier-fran-svenska-skogar-tar-fighten-mot-litium-och-bly/

Google Translate Page: https://www-di-se.translate.goog/hallbart-naringsliv/trabatterier-fran-svenska-skogar-tar-fighten-mot-litium-och-bly/?_x_tr_sl=sv&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US

Company Page: https://lignaenergy.se/

 

[RollinLower]

even though this would mean we need to produce a lot more wood, it would also mean we would need to dig for a lot less lithium. personally i'm hoping this would turn out to be a net positive, but you never know with these 'wonder products'

[RejZoR]

I'm just going to smash that big X for DOUBT right away until I see actual products using this. We hear all these magical things that promise the universe and then turn out to be vaporware or just straight up fraud (remember Theranos?). Not to mention usual crap around batteries where we are promise all sorts of yet again magical things about them that are "just around the corner" and they are essentially still pretty crap or it'll take another 10 or 20 years to see actual improvement.

 

Lithium and graphite/graphene structured batteries work because they have best energy density for what they are. If using wood polymers was so easy we'd discover this years ago. We're far past the dawn of revolutionary inventions that happened by mistake, like most of the old stuff we still use today. Either someone gets a brillaint brain fart already employed in a company that can push that to production or it's just slight evolution of same old we discovered 50 years ago.

[Spotty]

4 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I'm just going to smash that big X for DOUBT right away until I see actual products using this. We hear all these magical things that promise the universe and then turn out to be vaporware or just straight up fraud (remember Theranos?). Not to mention usual crap around batteries where we are promise all sorts of yet again magical things about them that are "just around the corner" and they are essentially still pretty crap or it'll take another 10 or 20 years to see actual improvement.

Big fat agree on this. Or at least until we see a spec sheet for what these 'wood batteries' are capable of: mAH capacity, maximum output current, operating temperatures, power density, recharge cycles, etc. I couldn't find any information on their website about them.

They'll be useless for things like electric vehicles if they weigh 10 times as much as conventional batteries, have 10 recharge cycles before needing to be replaced, or can only be used within a temperature range of 10°C-40°C.

[RejZoR]

21 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Big fat agree on this. Or at least until we see a spec sheet for what these 'wood batteries' are capable of: mAH capacity, maximum output current, operating temperatures, power density, recharge cycles, etc. I couldn't find any information on their website about them.

They'll be useless for things like electric vehicles if they weigh 10 times as much as conventional batteries, have 10 recharge cycles before needing to be replaced, or can only be used within a temperature range of 10°C-40°C.

Not just vehicles. Cars are relatively forgiving, though they still chug around 500kg of dead weight that's the same whether battery is fully charged or empty (unlike petrol cars where less fuel you have, less weight you're driving around and even there it's usually just 50-60kg of fuel). Issue with phones is weight and volume. Especially volume. Having heavier phone is annoying, but forgiving. Having it twice as thick or having to be 7 inches to have usable capacity is just not realistic.

 

No one will care it's sustainable and ecological if it makes phone massive or has a drop in charge capacity. Maybe this would fly with Fairphone in particular because of removable battery and whole fair and sutainable build and materials, but still.

[CarlBar]

51 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Big fat agree on this. Or at least until we see a spec sheet for what these 'wood batteries' are capable of: mAH capacity, maximum output current, operating temperatures, power density, recharge cycles, etc. I couldn't find any information on their website about them.

They'll be useless for things like electric vehicles if they weigh 10 times as much as conventional batteries, have 10 recharge cycles before needing to be replaced, or can only be used within a temperature range of 10°C-40°C.

 

Add me to the doubting list. Could this be amazing? Sure. If, and it's a big if they actually have useful levels of performance. You can make batteries using lemons, dosen't mean anyone using them widely.

[Spotty]

Had another look at their website, they say that it's only suitable for 'stationary applications'.

Quote

Focus on stationary applications

The drawbacks of Ligna Energy’s technology are space and weight for the storage, because of the lower energy density of the included bio-materials. This is acceptable in most stationary applications and why we focus on stationary applications where this is not a major obstacle.

Realistically the only thing this could even potentially be useful for would be battery storage for renewable energy sources such as wind power and solar. Even then there's still concerns with reliability, recharge cycles, and of course cost.

 

Good luck to them, but until there's some more information about how it actually works and hard data supporting their claims this is nothing more than snake oil batteries.

[suicidalfranco]

still going to look at synthetic fuels as the future for vehicles

[whispous]

Ligna Energy? Seriously?

[Nup]

They are working with the Laboratory or organic electronics. Using wood as a starting material is a good way to make a high value material from something cheap and abundant. Apparently they may be using a side-product of the forest and paper industries.

If these can be made more cheaply than metal based derivatives it could really help with the adoption of renewables and large scale batteries in general. I would also imagine they somewhat safer then metal based batteries. Thanks for sharing the article.

[da na]

Finally

Ligma battery

but seriously, this could definitely be more sustainable, if they are mostly biodegradable like wood as well. Hopefully they will last as long as a conventional battery though. 

[Vulkan HeStan]

Haha Ligna balls

[HarryNyquist]

I had to read the title of this thread like 4 times before I realized it was LigNa not LigMa. 

 

That being said this is pretty cool. 

[Forbidden Wafer]

Well, apparently it works, but energy density is bad. At least in the article pointed out by @Nup, their target is large scale energy storage.

[Forbidden Wafer]

3 hours ago, CarlBar said:

You can make batteries using lemons, doesn't mean anyone using them widely.

You can make plastic too. And it gets a permanent limonene aroma.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

3 hours ago, whispous said:

Ligna Energy? Seriously?

Might aswell just call it ligma and have the motto be ligma balls

[Nup]

9 minutes ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

Well, apparently it works, but energy density is bad. At least in the article pointed out by @Nup, their target is large scale energy storage.

its odd that their papers seem to mention large scale prep, while the op article/website mentions IOT devices. But yeah, I agree, it certainly wont have the density of metal counterparts.

[tridy]

I will try to get in touch with them and get additional information and maybe some documentation.

 

Quote

We have sold a thousand battery components for IoT applications

so they ought to have some sort of compliance and security documents.

 

then in the photos they show the batteries that are quite small (look bigger that AA batteries though), so my hope is that it will be something for the consumers as well

[jagdtigger]

*yawn*

Wake me up when its released and proven to be sustainable and financially viable....

[tridy]

Well, at least someone is trying.

[TetraSky]

Like every other battery tech in the news in the past two decades... 
I'll believe it when they actually release.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2020-01-28/wood-based-batteries-created-by-ligna-energy-ab-are-printed-in-commercial-scale-at-ynvisible-production

 

Bloomberg did report on their press release though, in January of 2020.

[jagdtigger]

12 minutes ago, tridy said:

Well, at least someone is trying.

Thats not my issue. So many hit the headlines portrayed as the next big thing and never heard again....

[Quackers101]

Linga comes in all kinds of flavour including wall nut.

gotta see what comes out of it, with so many other battery research that is going on.

[Sauron]

All I'm looking for here is capacity in relation to volume. This is all well and good but only if it can actually come close to the performance of lithium batteries.

[tikker]

19 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Thats not my issue. So many hit the headlines portrayed as the next big thing and never heard again....

That's press outlets for you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Batteries and fusion. The two technologies that always have their breakthoughs around the corner. Cool to see that different possibilities are still being explored for them though.