Battery maker Northolt is looking into creating electric car batteries that feature carbon from locally sourced wood. If the technology proves suitable, it would mean that a percentage of the battery pack would be made from a sustainable material. 

The project is being led by Northvolt, a Swedish battery manufacturer headed by two former Tesla executives. The startup is financed by Volkswagen, BMW, and Volvo, and is the process of building its first gigafactory in Sweden. 

Northvolt has entered into a joint development agreement with Stora Enso to create batteries that use  lignin – a plant-derived polymer found in the cell walls of plants. Trees are composed of 20–30% lignin, which acts as a strong, natural binding agent. The polymer is one of the largest renewable sources of carbon anywhere and grows abundantly in Scandinavia. 

Lignin is used to create a material known as Lignode, which is used for the anode part of an electric car battery. Under the agreement, Northvolt will use its factory resources to develop battery cell design and scale the technology. Should the technology prove both viable and scalable, it would be the world’s first battery to feature an anode sourced entirely from raw materials in Europe. According to Northvolt, the result would be a cell that is lower in both cost and carbon footprint.

Stora Enso’s pilot plant for bio-based carbon materials is located at the Group’s Sunila production site in Finland, where lignin has been industrially produced since 2015. The annual lignin production capacity is 50,000 tonnes.

Battery components could soon be sourced sustainably from wood