Marcel Weil

A cradle-to-gate LCA of an olive-pit-derived activated-carbon EDLC shows that scale-up can cut cell impacts by over 80%, shifting environmental hotspots from AC production to assembly energy and electrolyte supply.

Na-ion batteries (NIBs) are emerging as a complement to Li-ion batteries (LIBs). Owing to their reliance on more abundant raw materials, NIBs based on layered transition metal oxides (LTMOs) and hard carbon (HC) are frequently promoted as a low-cost alternative to LIBs, particularly LFP (LiFePO4). However, their techno-economic competitiveness remains insufficiently quantified. Here, we employ a multi-objective optimization framework to jointly evaluate manufacturing cost, volumetric energy density (VED), and charging time for ~4,500 Na-ion and Li-ion cell designs across three production scenarios. We show that NIBs can achieve cell-level cost parity with LFP, but only at the expense of lower VEDs and longer charging times. Achieving a clear competitive advantage would require further reductions in material costs, improvements in performance, or sustained increases in lithium carbonate prices in the range of 20-39 EUR kg-1 in China and 22-55 EUR kg-1 in Europe. Furthermore, Europe faces a trade‑off between low‑cost battery cell imports from China and the substantially higher costs associated with fully domestic production increasing costs by 18-27 %.

Na ₂ FeSiO ₄ is the optimal solution when input-related toxicity is not included, while Na _0.61 Fe[Fe(CN) ₆ ] _0.94 † becomes a promising option with the inclusion of that factor under given assumptions and limitations of the approach.

The transition toward a decarbonized energy system requires long‐term energy storage (LTES) solutions capable of complementing hydrogen‐based technologies. This study presents an exploratory life cycle assessment (LCA) of a primary aluminum–air battery (AAB) system as a prospective solid‐state LTES option, benchmarked against gaseous hydrogen (GH ₂ ) with underground storage and liquid hydrogen (LH ₂ ) with cryogenic tank. The AAB is evaluated under current and prospective aluminum production scenarios across different geographic contexts, and is benchmarked against alternatives using identical supply chain and use‐phase assumptions. AAB system achieves round‐trip efficiencies of 29–35%, exceeding GH ₂ and LH ₂ by at least 2% and 10%, respectively. Consequently, GH ₂ outperforms AAB across all categories on a cradle‐to‐use basis only thanks to underground storage, while AAB showing competitive performance it performs better than LH ₂ in global warming potential (GWP ₁₀₀ ) impact category. The conducted uncertainty analysis reveals that AAB might outperform H ₂ in GWP and eutrophication potential (freshwater) under favorable conditions. Overall, the findings highlight trade‐offs realizing climate benefits while mitigating resource and ecosystem impacts. Advancing low‐carbon smelting, material circularity, optimized logistics, and durable low‐impact components will be essential for enabling AAB to serve as a sustainable complement or partial substitute for hydrogen‐based LTES in future low‐carbon energy systems.

This work establishes a comprehensive life cycle inventory for containerized battery storage systems.

Ongoing research on energy storage systems, driven by the energy transition, has led to the development of alternative systems beyond conventional batteries, such as supercapacitors (SCs). These devices offer high‐power density, rapid charge/discharge, and long cycle life, making them suitable for applications requiring quick energy bursts. Moreover, they bear lesser dependency on critical raw materials, enhancing their sustainability. Despite their technological maturity, little is known about their environmental and economic implications from a life cycle perspective. This review offers an insight into life cycle assessment and life cycle costing studies evaluating the environmental impacts and economic viability of SCs. The analysis synthesizes existing research, identifies trends, and highlights key knowledge gaps. By providing a systematic overview of the life cycle sustainability metrics for SC technologies, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of their role as a viable and sustainable energy storage solution. Due to heterogeneous system boundaries and product systems found in literature, a clear estimation of average environmental impacts and cost performance remains challenging. Additionally, the sustainability implications of next‐generation SCs are not fully understood. Further research is needed to establish comprehensive sustainability assessments, improve methodological consistency, and guide future development.

A comprehensive review of 205 studies on energy storage sustainability evaluates economic, environmental, and social dimensions, highlights methodological gaps, and provides recommendations to improve future assessments.

Sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs) are considered the most promising candidate for electrochemical storage after lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) to meet the globally growing energy storage demand. Assessments to identify environmental hotspots and address them in further development at regular intervals are inevitable to ensure low environmental impact of SIBs in the future. However, the number of studies assessing the environmental impacts of SIBs is limited, and existing studies are mostly based on theoretical models and few limited sources. This study is one of the few to provide life cycle inventory data from actual production processes of SIBs, allowing for hotspot analysis of environmental impacts. A comparative life cycle assessment of two emerging SIB technologies is conducted based on primary laboratory data, focusing on the synthesis of the two cathode active materials (CAMs), sodium vanadium phosphate (NVP/C), and a Prussian white (PW). The results show that the impacts of NVP/C‐based pouch cells are significantly higher than the PW‐based cells in all impact categories due to lower gravimetric energy densities and higher CAM synthesis‐related impacts. To ensure the correct order of magnitude a benchmark NMC‐based LIB is assessed at the same laboratory, showing lower impacts than both SIBs, due to higher gravimetric energy densities.