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。限制未来环境退化、恶劣天气事件和生物多样性下降，同时确保未来燃料、食物、水和农作物的供应是至关重要的。需要全球努力实现联合国到2050年净零排放的目标。实现这一目标的关键是开发新的颠覆性技术，以促进用更绿色、更自然和更可持续的替代能源取代化石燃料和衍生品。与这些目标相一致，这个由海洋生物聚合物有限公司(MBL)和格拉斯哥大学(UoG)提出的项目是一个合作开发项目，旨在通过利用可持续的、天然衍生的海藻聚合物和尖端纳米材料来革新能量存储技术。成功将为锂离子电池(LIB)提供创新的海藻酸硅阳极，使电池容量和充电率发生阶段性变化。能源储存方面的这种转变将对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(私人车辆和公交车)。要实现净零排放，全球温室气体排放量必须大幅削减。随着未来几十年全球人口的增长和人们对(不断提高)生活水平的期望的提高，即使是解决这6%的问题也是一个重大挑战。在发展创新能源和运输技术的同时改善基础设施和效率，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(例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。这一合作处于向电池市场提供创新和卓越技术的理想位置，旨在为LIBS开发新的绿色和可持续的硅负极技术。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带来变革性的进步。与最先进的基于石墨负极的系统相比，采用硅基电池有可能改变电动汽车(EVS)的未来发展，增加行驶里程，大幅缩短充电时间，并缩小车辆传动系的尺寸(尺寸/重量)。这一颠覆性的步骤是用硅取代LIBS中成熟的石墨阳极，这将带来充电容量的阶梯变化，并将充电电池的寿命延长一个数量级。这场潜在的革命可以通过利用天然生物聚合物(MBL)的巨大技能来开发新的纳米复合材料和原型能量存储(UOG)来实现，以潜在地采用下一代LiB技术。

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.