Syed MasoodLithium (Li) ion batteries. The source of everyday energy. While we live in a world filled with technologies that grow faster than we can imagine and with sights of a technological driven future, energy becomes the currency of tomorrow. Batteries, specifically Li-ion batteries have been the conduit and backbone that facilitated innovation of yesteryears. Yet, this same technology that has allowed for ubiquitous advances in science is starting to come at unprecedented cost. That cost being child labor, environmental and ecological damage, and human rights violations.
But, before we delve deep into the catastrophic cost of everyday batteries, let’s take a look of how we got here. Li-ion batteries were an area of experimentation by NASA early scientists in the 1960s, but it wasn’t until the 1970s when Stanley Whittingham conceived the first rechargeable Li-ion batteries. Instead of using the classical copper as its cathode, Whittingham opted for titanium disulfide (TiS2). By using TiS2, Whittingham created a layered structure that could take in Li-ions without major alterations to the crystal structure. However, the propensity of the battery to release deadly hydrogen sulfide gas and spontaneously catch fires inhibited its use and commercialization.
It wasn’t until the 1980s, when Ned Godshall, Koichi Mizushima, and John B. Goodenough were able to replace the TiS2 cathode with one composed of lithium cobalt oxide (LCO). LCO as a cathode offered a similar layered structure but with enhanced stability.
However, one core failure of the Li-ion batteries was the lithium anode itself. The lithium metal anodes proved to be unstable and lead to the formation of dendrites. These dendrite formations would cause short-circuiting of the battery and proved to be a critical failure in design. However, Akira Yoshino and Asahi Kasei in 1985 found that petroleum coke, a less graphitized form of carbon, when intercalated with Li-ions stabilizes the structural layers together. In 2019, Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough, and Akira Yoshino won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the foundations and creating the modern-day Li-ion battery.
While the development of the Li-ion battery is essential for everyday tasks in a hyper technologically driven society and the backbone and lifeline to entire industries, the overproduction of Li-ion batteries is a source of humanitarian, environmental, and potentially ecological disasters. Cobalt mining harms ecosystems and emits greenhouse gasses which contribute to global warming. Furthermore, in 2021 about 60 % – 70 % of the world’s supply of Cobalt was produced by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country cited for its human rights violations by the Human Rights Watch for the use of child labor in the mining industry, specifically in the cobalt mining industry. The need for cobalt is rising with its use in Li-ion batteries from cell phones to electric vehicles, however the exploitation of the vulnerable population in acquiring that cobalt has not been mitigated.
Yet unfortunately this isn’t only the method and cost associated with acquiring cobalt. Deep sea mining is a method of acquiring ores and minerals from deep ocean beds. While there exist no active commercial deep-sea mining operations, there are a couple on the horizon. One such operation is to acquire cobalt from the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ). The CCZ is a region in the deep Pacific home to over 5,000 species that are new science. The potential ecological impact of deep-sea mining in the CCZ poses the question of how important technological progress and sustainability is over that of environmental regulation and sustainability.
But all is not lost. Just as innovation made Li-ion batteries safer and easier to use, scientific progress has led to the development of molten-salt batteries. Thermal batteries were first used by the Germans during the development of the V-2 rocket. But have recently made a comeback. Molten-salt batteries use salts, primarily sodium for their cathode. In 2023, molten-salt batteries were shown to be rechargeable replacements for high-energy Li-ion batteries.
While the burden placed by the ever-increasing demand of energy specifically on the use of batteries will probably only worsen as innovation is energy intensive, examples include generative AI, electrical vehicles, and graphic cards development, we can and should limit how we meet those demands. Exploitation of vulnerable populations, I believe, is a cost too steep. Molten salt batteries pose a compelling alternative and solution; however, they require some time before ubiquitous adoption. Therefore, in an era of technological reliance and computation innovation, the era of battery development continues to rage forward. Hopefully, molten-salt batteries prove to have lower and more manageable costs.
Peer Editor: Liza Chartampila