(Bloomberg) — Swedish battery maker Northvolt AB is looking to make batteries that use carbon contained in wood sourced from Nordic forests to help lower environmental footprint and cost.
Northvolt and Finnish forestry company Stora Enso Oyj plan to make sustainable batteries using lignin-based hard carbon on an industrial scale, the companies said Friday.
The aim is to develop a battery with anode sourced entirely from European raw materials, they said.
“We are exploring a new source of sustainable raw material and expanding the European battery value chain, while also developing a less expensive battery chemistry,” said Emma Nehrenheim, chief environmental officer at Northvolt.
Lignin, one of the biggest renewable sources of carbon on the planet, is a plant-derived polymer found in the cell walls of dry-land plants.
Trees are composed of 20% to 30% of lignin.
In the partnership, Stora Enso will provide its lignin-based anode material Lignode, while Northvolt will drive cell design, production process development and scale-up of the technology.
Stora Enso is the world’s largest kraft lignin producer, making 50,000 tons a year at its Sunila site in Finland.
It’s also conducting a feasibility study into the first industrial production of Lignode at the Sunila site.
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