There’s no doubt that the lithium-ion battery has been an important catalyst for the green revolution,but there is still much work to be done for a full switch to renewable energy. Right now,scientists see many upcoming battery innovations that have the promise to do this.However,the road to commercialization is long,arduous,and filled with many unexpected obstacles. THE NEAR-TERM:IMPROVING THE LI-ION For the foreseeable future,the improvement of battery technology relies on modifications being made to already-existing lithium-ion technology.In fact,experts estimate that lithium-ions will continue to increase capacity by 6-7%annually for a number of years. Here’s what’s driving those advances: Efficient Manufacturing Tesla has already made significant advances in battery design and production through its Gigafactory: Better engineering and manufacturing processes. Wider and longer cell design allows more materials packaged into each cell. New battery cooling system allows to fit more cells into battery pack. Better Cathodes Most of the recent advances in lithium-ion energy density have come from manipulating the relative quantities of cobalt,aluminum,manganese,and nickel in the cathodes.By 2020,75%of batteries are expected to contain cobalt in some capacity. For scientists,its about finding the materials and crystal structures that can store the maximum amount of ions.The next generation of cathodes may be born from lithium-rich layered oxide materials(LLOs)or similar approaches,such as the nickel-rich variety. Better Anodes While most lithium-ion progress to date has come from cathode tinkering,the biggest advances might happen in the anode. Current graphite anodes can only store one lithium atom for every six carbon atoms–but silicon anodes could store 4.4 lithium atoms for every one silicon atom.That’s a theoretical 10x increase in capacity! However,the problem with this is well-documented.When silicon houses these lithium ions,it ends up bloating in size up to 400%.This volume change can cause irreversible damage to the anode,making the battery unusable. To get around this,scientists are looking at a few different solutions. 1.Encasing silicon in a graphene“cage”to prevent cracking after expansion. 2.Using silicon nanowires,which can better handle the volume change. 3.Adding silicon in tiny amounts using existing manufacturing processes–Tesla is rumored to already be doing this. Solid-State Lithium-Ion Lastly,a final improvement that is being worked on for the lithium-ion battery is to use a solid-state setup,rather than having liquid electrolytes enabling the ion transfer.This design could increase energy density in the future,but it still has some problems to resolve first,such as ions moving too slowing through the solid electrolyte. THE LONG-TERM:BEYOND THE LITHIUM-ION Here are some new innovations in the pipeline that could help enable the future of battery technology: Lithium-Air Anode:Lithium Cathode:Porous carbon(Oxygen) Promise:10x greater energy density than Li-ionProblems:Air is not pure enough and would need to be filtered.Lithium and oxygen form peroxide films that produce a barrier,ultimately killing storage capacity.Cycle life is only 50 cycles in lab tests. Variations:Scientists also trying aluminum-air and sodium-air batteries as well. Lithium-Sulphur Anode:Lithium Cathode:Sulphur,Carbon Promise:Lighter,cheaper,and more powerful than li-ionProblems:Volume expansion of up to 80%,causing mechanical stress.Unwanted reactions with electrolytes.Poor conductivity and poor stability at higher temperatures. Variations:Many different variations exist,including using graphite/graphene,and silicon in the chemistry. Vanadium Flow Batteries Catholyte:Vanadium Anolyte:Vanadium Promise:Using vanadium ions in different oxidation states to store chemical potential energy at scale.Can be expanded simply by using larger electrolyte tanks. Problems:Poor energy-to-volume ratio.Very heavy;must be used in stationary applications. Variations:Scientists are experimenting with other flow battery chemistries as well,such as zinc-bromine. BATTERY SERIES:CONCLUSION While the future of battery technology is very exciting,for the near and medium terms,scientists are mainly focused on improving the already-commercialized lithium-ion. What does the battery market look like 15 to 20 years from now?It’s ultimately hard to say.However,it’s likely that some of these new technologies above will help in leading the charge to a 100%renewable future.

Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 has been a center of attention for people interested in the growing momentum behind green energy,electric cars,and battery production.Therefore,it is no surprise that this facility was in the news again last month,with Tesla starting to mass produce batteries as it ramps up to its goal of 35GWh of capacity and beyond. However,as exciting as this project is,it’s actually just one of multiple large-scale“megafactories”being built–with many of them being in China. CHINA LEADING THE CHARGE We talked to Simon Moores,Managing Director at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence,who explained that Tesla isn’t alone or unique in its ambitions to build lithium-ion batteries at scale: While the Tesla Gigafactory is vitally important from an EV vertical integration perspective,the majority of new lithium-ion battery capacity is being built in China.Some of these plants are expected to be huge such as the CATL facility at 50GWh–there is little doubt that China’s lithium-ion industry has come of age. Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd(CATL)has plans to build the largest lithium-ion megafactory of all–but the company is little known in North America.It’s already worth$11.5 billion,and could be a dominant force globally in the battery sector if it successfully increases its lithium-ion production capacity six-fold to 50GWh by the year 2020. Other Chinese manufacturers are on a similar trajectory.Panasonic,LG Chem,and Boston Power are building new megafactory plants in China,while companies such as Samsung and BYD are expanding existing ones.All lithium-ion plants in China currently have a capacity of 16.4GWh–but by 2020,they will combine for a total of 107.5GWh. CAPACITY BY COUNTRY This ramp up in China means that the country will have 62%of the world’s lithium-ion battery production capacity by 2020. There are only three other players in the megafactory game:United States,South Korea,and Poland. Above estimates on battery capacity courtesy of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.