For Bergen Carbon Solution this amounts to ~6 MNOK over the next three years. This ensures that we can strengthen our development team further, and at the same time secure that our material is qualified for future applications.
The scarce lithium resources, increase in demand for lithium-based products, and a recovery rate of less than 1%, have increased the price of lithium drastically. The high price of lithium has raised the manufacturing cost of new Electric Vehicles (EV) which may be restricting the rapid development of EVs. It is crucial that alternative types of energy storage systems are developed based on alternative materials, which is why Bergen Carbon Solutions has looked into this research project.
Sodium is a cheap and abundant material, widely distributed around the world. The development of Sodium Ion Batteries (SIBs) can reduce material costs, including cathode active materials, electrolytes, and current collectors used in the production of the batteries. By adding CNT to SIBs, the performance of electrode materials is improved.
Our production of CNTs uses significantly less energy than conventional methods and creates a positive environmental impact, and this joint research project will focus on SIBs, utilizing with our green carbon nanofibers/nanotubes to improve the performance, and thus reduce the need for scarce lithium resources used in production of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs).
