Week 6 Session 13

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Batteries underpin much of the advances of the 21’st century. Can you imagine a world without your smartphone or one where you had to plug into the grid to recharge your electronics?

The Lithium-Ion battery today is among the world's most sought-after resources, to the extent that an entire country’s regime has been propped up on the selling of this strategic resource. But the extraction of Lithium and other heavy metals are major sources of environmental pollution in their source countries.

Furthermore, Lithium-ion cells have a finite capacity of around 300-500 cycles, where one cycle is one complete charge and discharge, which can last anywhere from 3-to-5 years

All the major battery manufacturers, like LG, Samsung, and Panasonic, are expected to spend upwards of US$ 150.6 Billion by 2025 on finding alternatives to the Lithium-Ion battery. Alongside them, researchers from the University of Maryland, University of Berkeley, and Tsinghua University are conducting research to push the envelope of battery technology to a much brighter future.

The following 2 are the most likely technologies that might replace Lithium-Ion batteries in the future.

1. Battery Swapping

Picture this, you are in your brand new swanky EV and cruising down the highway when suddenly, you get an alert saying that your battery capacity is rapidly reaching zero. You search for a plug-in charging station and thankfully, you find one just within the acceptable range of the remaining battery charge. Reaching there you find that there is a long line in front of the charging station and will take an average of 2-hours to charge your battery.

Charging an EV takes a long time, a really long time. The only models to buck this trend are the EVs released by Tesla, and only if the cars are connected to the Tesla superchargers.

For the EV market to expand rapidly, the time taken to charge batteries will be a huge deterrent. But what if you could remove your dead battery and swap it with a fully charged one?

This is the technology that the Government of India has proposed in its annual budget for 2021-22. Battery swapping. A technology in which users can exchange the expended batteries from their vehicles with new fully charged batteries. This technology significantly reduces the charging time while also decreasing the load on the electric grid. Currently, the technology only supports integration in two-wheelers and three-wheelers.

While Niti Aayog, the think tank of India, has not released any concrete numbers regarding the expected subsidies and investments in the technology, one can make an educated guess based on the global trends.

The global battery swapping market is projected to rise to US$ 850 million by 2030 rising by an estimated CAGR of 24.5% during 2021-2030 of which, India, China, and SEA countries will be a big part.

2. Solid-State Batteries

Every single EV on the road requires a source of energy and typically, in the case of an all-electric vehicle, a Lithium-Ion battery pack provides this energy. Rechargeable batteries in use around the world have similar physical structures and share a few similarities viz are,

1. Cathode, the negative terminal. These electrodes are usually constructed from metal oxides of Manganese, Cobalt, Nickel, and Aluminum
2. Anode, the positive terminal. Usually constructed from Graphite or Carbon 3. Electrolyte, which allows for the movement of lithium ions from the anode to the cathode. The electrolyte is, generally, the heaviest part of the battery apparatus 4. Separator, which arrests the flow of electrons from the anode to the cathode

3. Batteries are generally considered to be lightweight and durable. But, powering an Electric Vehicle requires enormous wattage, and this increase in capacity comes with an increase in the weight of the battery. The lion’s share of the weight of the battery comes from the electrolyte and swapping out the electrolyte will reduce the overall weight of the battery.

   Solid-state batteries replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid like glass or ceramic significantly reducing the weight of the battery pack. Solid-state batteries are also much smaller in size, this allows battery manufacturers to stack more cells per meter. A property that when combined with the higher energy density of solid-state electrolytes increases the capacity of the battery. Liquid electrolytes are prone to a phenomenon known as vaporization at high temperatures, where the liquid turns to gas, resulting in the combustion of the battery pack. Solid-state batteries are much safer to operate at higher temperatures and can handle larger loads.

   This US$6 Billion solid-state battery market is primed to take over the world by 2030. Driven primarily by the Electric Vehicle boom, the solid-state battery is soon coming to a battery pack near you.