A new battery made from seeds and pine resin

Today's lithium batteries are indeed efficient, but their use involves a variety of environmental and financial problems. Using materials obtained from the seeds of the cultured alfalfa plant and in combination with resin from pine trees, researchers were able to come up with a particularly intriguing alternative.

[Translation by Dr. Nachmani Moshe]
Today's lithium batteries are indeed efficient, but their use involves a variety of environmental and financial problems. Using materials obtained from the seeds of the cultured alfalfa plant and in combination with resin from pine trees, researchers were able to come up with a particularly intriguing alternative.

The researchers, from Uppsala University in Sweden, published their research findings in the scientific journal ChemSusChem. "We believe that our discovery opens a window for the development of batteries that are more environmentally friendly and have improved energy efficiency compared to batteries commonly used today," said researcher Daniel Brandell from the Department of Chemistry at Uppsala University.

Lithium batteries, thanks to their high energy capacity, are a promising solution in a variety of products in future energy systems, for example - in electric vehicles or for storing large amounts of electricity for the municipal power grid. At the same time, the lithium batteries that are common today have several problems related to the environment and their financial cost. The first problem is the fact that the reserves of lithium that can be commercially produced are limited and it is not clear if their quantity will be able to meet the demands in the future. Moreover, it is very difficult to recycle the lithium metal from the inorganic materials on which the lithium batteries that exist today are based. In addition, lithium batteries contain other materials, even rarer than lithium metal, which are quite difficult to replace with other materials and which require large energy inputs and toxic chemicals for their recycling.

The researchers succeeded in developing a completely new idea of ​​a battery - a battery based on a renewable biological material that can be recycled with the energy capacity inside it matching that of existing lithium ion batteries. The components of the innovative battery are made from renewable organic bio-materials obtained from the seeds of the alfalfa plant and the resin of the pine tree, and can be powered with low energy inputs using non-dangerous chemicals, such as ethanol and water.
Although the batteries that exist today contain non-renewable inorganic materials, this is not the first time that a battery composed of renewable materials has been presented. However, their recycling and extraction strategy is a completely new scientific idea. The ability to build a new battery from the components of an exhausted battery is also possible within the new method. In other words, a simple and straightforward process makes it possible to use it over and over again.

The researchers showed that lithium extracted from an exhausted battery can be reused for a new battery: all that is needed is to add more biological material. The scientists proved that their battery is able to produce up to 99% of the energy output of the original battery.

The lead researcher adds: "The use of organic materials from renewable sources allows us to avoid a number of problems that could arise from a sharp increase in the use of lithium batteries. But more importantly, this is a huge step in developing a simple and environmentally friendly method to recycle the lithium found in these batteries. These solutions are also extremely economical."
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