Sustainable Seaweed Hydrogels for Next Generation Lithium Ion Batteries (LIBs)

气候危机是一个严重的全球威胁，在国际上具有直接的政治重要性。限制未来的环境退化、恶劣天气事件和生物多样性下降，同时确保未来的燃料、食品、水和农作物供应至关重要。实现这一目标的关键是开发新的、颠覆性的技术，以促进用更绿色、自然和可持续的替代品取代化石燃料和衍生物。与这些目标相一致，海洋生物聚合物有限公司（MBL）和格拉斯哥大学（UoG）之间的这个拟议项目是一个合作开发项目，通过利用可持续的、天然衍生的海藻聚合物和尖端纳米材料，彻底改变储能技术。成功将为锂离子电池（LIB）提供创新的硅藻酸盐阳极，提供电池容量和充电速率的阶跃变化。这种能源储存的转型对于向净零排放过渡至关重要。全球约6%的二氧化碳排放来自客运（个人车辆和公共汽车）。为了实现净零排放，必须大幅削减全球温室气体排放。随着全球人口在未来几十年的增长和人们对生活水平（不断提高）的期望的提高，即使是这6%也是一个重大挑战。改善基础设施和提高效率，同时开发创新的能源和运输技术，将有助于应对人口增长、能源需求、温室气体（碳）排放和气候变化等挑战。这些都是政治上的当务之急，立法者承诺加强监管（如逐步淘汰化石燃料汽车）意味着应对这些重大挑战是一项强制性行动。此次合作是为电池市场提供创新和上级技术的理想选择，旨在为锂离子电池开发新的绿色和可持续的硅阳极技术。实现这一目标将在不影响电池安全性的情况下，在充电容量、充电时间和电池寿命方面取得变革性进展。与最先进的石墨阳极系统相比，采用硅基电池有可能改变电动汽车（EV）的未来发展，增加行驶里程，缩短充电时间并缩小（尺寸/重量）车辆传动系统。用硅取代LIB中成熟的石墨阳极的突破性步骤将带来充电容量的阶跃变化，并将充电电池寿命提高一个数量级。这一潜在的革命可以通过利用天然生物基聚合物（MBL）的大量技能来开发新的纳米复合材料和原型储能（UoG），以潜在地采用下一代LIB技术来实现。

The climate crisis is a serious global threat of immediate political importance internationally. Limiting future environmental degradation, severe weather events and declining biodiversity whilst securing future supplies of fuel, food, water and crops is essential.A global effort is needed to achieve the United Nations goal of Net Zero emissions by 2050\. Key to achieving this is the development of new, disruptive technologies to facilitate replacing fossil fuels and derivatives with greener, natural and sustainable alternatives.Aligned with these goals, this proposed project between Marine Biopolymers Limited (MBL) and the University of Glasgow (UoG) is a collaborative development to revolutionise energy storage technology by exploiting sustainable, naturally-derived seaweed polymers and cutting-edge nanomaterials. Success would deliver innovative silicon-alginate anodes for lithium ion batteries (LIBs), offering step changes in battery capacity and charging rate. Such transformations in energy storage will be vital in transitioning to Net Zero.Around 6% of global CO2 emissions results from passenger transport (personal vehicles and buses). To achieve Net Zero emissions, greenhouse gas global emissions must be drastically cut. Addressing even this 6% is a major challenge as the global population grows over the coming decades and expectations of (ever-increasing) living standards rise. Improving infrastructure and efficiency while developing innovative energy and transport technologies will help to meet these challenges of population growth, energy demand, greenhouse gas (carbon) emissions and climate change. These are political imperatives and increased regulation promised by lawmakers (such as phasing out fossil-fueled vehicles) means that meeting these grand challenges is a mandatory action.This collaboration is ideally placed to deliver innovative and superior technology to the battery market and aims to develop new green and sustainable silicon anode technology for LIBs. Achieving this would deliver transformative advances in charging capacity, recharge times and longevity of batteries without compromising on their safety. Adoption of Silicon based batteries has the potential to transform the future development of electric vehicles (EVs), increasing driving range, slashing charging times and downsizing (dimensions/weight) vehicle drivetrains compared to state-of-the-art graphite anode based systems. The disruptive step of replacing well-established graphite anodes in LIBs with silicon will bring a step-change in charge capacity and increase charged battery life by an order of magnitude. This potential revolution can be achieved by tapping into a vast skillset in natural bio-based polymers (MBL) to develop new nanocomposites and prototype energy stores (UoG) for potential adoption into next-generation LIB technology.