Exploiting CO2-Derived Carbon in Lithium-Ion Batteries

The extraction of valuable carbon-based products from CO2 reduction represents a promising route to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote circular economy practices, and facilitate the integration of energy storage sources such as Li-ion batteries (LIBs). Using such extremely valuable sustainable products obtained from the CO2 capture process can solve not only the global warming problems but also the high demand of the battery industry to provide graphite and highly conductive additives. Herein, a carbon nanomaterial (CNM) extracted from CO2 reduction treatment is used as the conductive additive in LIB graphite anode and lithium iron phosphate cathode. The electrodes are produced by casting, using both the conventional poly(vinylidene fluoride) binder, dissolved in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, and sodium alginate as a green, water-soluble, alternative binder. The electrochemical performance of the CNM-based electrodes is here compared to that of LIB cathodes and anodes produced with a commercial carbon additive. The electrodes featuring CNM offer electrochemical performance close to those of conventional electrodes in which commercial conductive additives are utilized.