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As demand for electric vehicles soars, scientists are searching for materials to make sustainable batteries. Lignin, the stuff that makes trees woody, is shaping up to be a strong contender. A About eight years ago, a major paper producer in Finland realised the world was changing. The rise of digital media, a fall in office printing and the dwindling popularity of sending things by post – among other factors – meant that paper had embarked on a steady decline. Stora Enso, in Finland, describes itself as "one of the largest private forest owners in the world". As such, it has a lot of trees, which it uses to make wood products, paper and packaging, for example. Now it wants to make batteries as well – electric vehicle batteries that charge up in as little as eight minutes. The company hired engineers to look into the possibility of using lignin, a polymer found in trees. Around 30% of a tree is lignin, depending on the species – the rest is largely cellulose. "Lignin is the glue in the trees that kind of glues the cellulose fibres together and also makes the trees very stiff," explains Lauri Lehtonen, head of Stora Enso's lignin-based battery solution, Lignode. Lignin, a polymer, contains carbon. And carbon makes a great material for a vital component in batteries called the anode. The lithium ion battery in your phone almost certainly has a graphite anode – graphite is a form of carbon with a layered structure. Stora Enso's engineers decided that they could extract lignin from the waste pulp already being produced at some of their facilities and process that lignin to make a carbon material for battery anodes. The firm is partnering with Swedish company Northvolt and plans to manufacture batteries as early as 2025. Paper mills produce large quantities of waste lignin, which can be used for other purposes – including making battery components (Credit: Getty Images) Paper mills produce large quantities of waste lignin, which can be used for other purposes – including making battery components (Credit: Getty Images) With more and more people buying electric cars and storing energy at home, the global appetite for batteries is expected to grow sharply in the coming years. As Lehtonen sees it, "the demand is just mind-blowing". In 2015, a few hundred additional gigawatt hours (GWh) were required every year across the world's battery stocks – but this will rocket to few thousand additional GWh required annually by 2030 as the world moves away from fossil fuels, according to management consultancy McKinsey. The problem is that the lithium ion batteries we rely on today largely depend on environmentally damaging industrial processes and mining. Plus, some of the materials for these batteries are toxic and difficult to recycle. Many are also sourced in countries with poor human rights records. Making synthetic graphite, for example, involves heating carbon to temperatures of up to 3,000C (5,432F) for weeks at a time. The energy for this often comes from coal-fired power plants in China, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie. The search is on for sustainable battery materials that are more widely available. Some say we can find them in trees. Generally, all batteries need a cathode and anode – the positive and negative electrodes, respectively, between which charged particles called ions flow. When a battery is charged, lithium or sodium ions, for example, transfer from the cathode to the anode, where they settle like cars in a multi-storey car park, explains Jill Pestana, a California-based battery scientist and engineer currently working as an independent consultant. "The main property that you want in this parking structure of a material is that it can easily take in the lithium or sodium and let it leave, and it doesn't crumble apart," she explains. When the battery is discharged in order to power something like an electric car, the ions move back to the cathode after releasing electrons – the electrons move through the wire in an electrical circuit, transferring energy to the vehicle. Graphite, Pestana says, is a "spectacular" material because it works so well as a reliable anode that enables such reactions to take place. Alternatives including lignin-derived carbon structures have a fight on their hands to demonstrate that they are up to the job. There are multiple firms exploring lignin's potential in battery development, however, such as Bright Day Graphene in Sweden, which makes graphene – another form of carbon – from lignin. Lehtonen extols the virtues of his firm's carbon anode material, which Stora Enso has named Lignode. He won't reveal exactly how the company turns lignin into a hard carbon structure, or what that structure is, exactly, except to say that the process involves heating the lignin – but to temperatures nowhere near as high as those required for synthetic graphite production. One important feature of the resulting carbon structure is that it is "amorphous", or irregular, says Lehtonen: "It actually allows a lot more mobility of the ions in and out." Stora Enso claims that this will help them make a lithium ion or sodium ion battery that can be charged in as little as eight minutes. Fast charging is a key goal for developers of electric vehicle batteries. The sustainability of batteries made from waste paper pulp depends on many factors, including ensuring that the raw materials genuinely come from waste (Credit: Stora Enso) The sustainability of batteries made from waste paper pulp depends on many factors, including ensuring that the raw materials genuinely come from waste (Credit: Stora Enso) Separate research into lignin-derived carbon anodes, by Magda Titirici at Imperial College London in the UK and colleagues, suggests that it is possible to make conductive mats containing intricate, irregular carbon structures with lots of oxygen-rich defects. These defects appear to heighten the anode's reactivity with ions transferred from the cathode in sodium ion batteries, says Titirici, which in turn shortens charging times: "This conductive mat is fantastic for batteries." Wyatt Tenhaeff, at the University of Rochester in New York State, has also made lignin-derived anodes in laboratory settings. Lignin is "really cool", he says, because it is a byproduct that could have many potential uses. In experiments, he and his colleagues found that they could use the lignin to make an anode with a self-supporting structure, which didn't require glue or a copper-based current collector – a common component in lithium ion batteries. Despite the fact that this could reduce the cost of lignin-derived carbon anodes, he is sceptical that they can compete commercially with graphite anodes. "I just don't think it's going to be a big enough step-change in terms of cost or performance to replace the entrenched graphite," he says. There's also the issue of sustainability. Chelsea Baldino, a researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation, says that so long as the lignin used for anode production is extracted as a byproduct from the paper-making process, then additional trees won't be chopped down in order to make batteries. A spokesman for Stora Enso confirms that, currently, all lignin the company uses is "a side stream of the pulping process", and utilising it does not increase the number of trees felled or volume of wood used in pulp-making. Anyone seeking to make anodes from lignin must ensure that the forestry from which that lignin is sourced is also sustainable, however, adds Pestana. "If the pulp industry isn't sustainable, then the material itself isn't a sustainably derived material," she explains. According to Stora Enso's 2021 annual report , the company "knows the origin of all the wood it uses and 100% comes from sustainable sources". There is at least one other way that lignin could be used in batteries, besides anodes. In April, a research team in Italy published a paper about their efforts to develop a lignin-based electrolyte. This is the component that sits between the cathode and anode – it helps ions flow between the electrodes but also forces electrons to take the desired path through the electrical circuit to which the battery is connected. In other words, it prevents the electrons from simply bouncing between the electrodes, which would leave your smartphone as dead as a doornail. Carbon Count The emissions from travel it took to report this story were 0kg CO2. The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view. Find out more about how we calculated this figure here. You can get polymers for electrolytes from oil, says Gianmarco Griffini at the Polytechnic University of Milan, but he adds that it would be beneficial to find alternative, sustainable sources instead. He explains that the idea of using lignin arose after he and colleagues experimented with using the material in solar panels – with slightly underwhelming results. "The efficiencies you get in solar cells are relatively limited because lignin is brown, so it actually absorbs some light," he explains. In batteries, that doesn't matter. For anode production, lignin is heat-treated to break it into its constituent carbons. But Griffini, a self-described "polymer guy", says he prefers to use it in its polymer form. With this in mind, he and colleagues developed a gel polymer electrolyte that aided the movement of ions in an experimental potassium battery. "It actually came out pretty nicely," he says. The commercial viability of all these ideas is yet to be proven. Titirici adds however that, in theory, you could make a battery that uses polymers from lignin in the electrolyte as well as lignin-derived carbons in the anode. Maybe you could even use it to power the wooden electronic components described in a paper earlier this year. Perfect tech for your treehouse, right? Or would that be going too far?n that rabbitfish are a tropical species generally confined to warm waters, we think that their expansion is linked to [ocean] warming," says Adrianna Verges, a researcher on the ecological impacts of climate change at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and an author of the Greek and Turkish survey. "In our study, we found that large populations of rabbitfish are confined to the warmer eastern parts of the Mediterranean." An Indian start-up has found an unusual use for the tonnes of flowers which clog the Ganges: turning them into vegan leather. I Inside a dusty compound in the northern Indian city of Kanpur lies a sterilised lab with an incubator full of flasks. Each of these flasks contains a small mound of what looks like a sourdough starter. The room nextdoor houses a shiny metal cylindrical vessel called a bioreactor, akin to what you might expect to find in a laboratory which manufactures antibiotics. But this is no pharmaceutical facility – what is being made in the pipe-laden bioreactor won't save you from an infection. It could help make India's rivers a bit cleaner though It's called Fleather, and it's a new material being developed as a sustainable alternative to animal leather. It is delicate and smooth to touch, like soft lamb skin leather, and its journey begins in an unexpected place – flowers. I want to make animal leather history – Ankit Agarwal Fleather, made by a Kanpur-based startup called Phool, is part of an emerging trend of companies producing plant- and fungi-based leather alternatives which aim to disrupt the traditional leather industry and capitalise on growing interest in "vegan" fashion. Producing leather from animals poses several environmental hazards. It is energy- and water-intensive and the process of tanning and treating animal skin with chemicals to make leather releases toxic heavy metals that can poison water bodies. Cattle rearing to source animal skin, meanwhile, produces greenhouse gases and contributes to deforestation. Animal rights activists also condemn leather, citing inhumane conditions in slaughter houses. Fleather, on the other hand, is made by repurposing floral waste generated in temples across India, and it is Phool's moonshot. To give them a leather-like appearance, Fleather sheets are embossed with a crocodile-skin pattern (Credit: Sushmita Pathak) To give them a leather-like appearance, Fleather sheets are embossed with a crocodile-skin pattern (Credit: Sushmita Pathak) The startup's journey began on a cold winter morning in 2015, when Ankit Agarwal and his friend made their way to the bustling bank of the Ganges in Agarwal's hometown Kanpur for some sightseeing. The Ganges is believed by Hindus to be the most sacred of all rivers. But the sight that greeted the duo belied this faith. Rubbish was floating on the grey, visibly-polluted water. Among the muck were tonnes of flowers – marigolds, roses and chrysanthemums – discarded by temples and worshippers. These flowers are used in Hindu rituals and are considered sacred, meaning they can't be disposed of along with other waste. You might also like: What would a green World Cup look like? The overlooked benefits of real Christmas trees Why you need a 'wellbeing wardrobe' But depositing them in a river is sometimes part of the ritual and as a result flowers are dumped in water bodies daily where they leach out harmful chemicals from pesticides, and eventually decay into mulch that contaminates the water. Undeterred by the obvious pollution, devotees take ceremonial dips in the Ganges and cup their palms to take holy sips. The sight disturbed Agarwal, and set him on a quest to find a solution to the uniquely Indian problem of temple flower waste, which he calls "the lowest hanging fruit" among pollutants. In 2017, he zeroed in on an idea to upcycle the flowers into incense sticks, and founded Phool ("flower" in Hindi). The company is backed by the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur and counts Bollywood star Alia Bhatt among its investors. Every morning Phool trucks travelled around Kanpur's temples collecting the flower waste before it was dumped into the river. At the Phool factory, workers plucked the petals and set them to dry. The dried petals were then powdered and made into a dough with essential oils which female workers then rolled into incense sticks. But it turned out that there was a far more impactful and surprising use for the flowers, as the company was soon to discover. A chance discovery On a humid day in 2018, Nachiket Kuntla, head of research and development at Phool, and other scientists at the company noticed a whitish layer on a pile of waste flowers on the factory floor. Phool workers collect waste flowers discarded after being offered to the deities at one of Kanpur's biggest temples situated on the banks of the Ganges (Credit: Sushmita Pathak) Phool workers collect waste flowers discarded after being offered to the deities at one of Kanpur's biggest temples situated on the banks of the Ganges (Credit: Sushmita Pathak) When they peered closer, they saw a thin fibrous network. It seemed some kind of fungal microorganism was trying to grow on the flowers, drawing nutrition from the cellulose in them, explains Kuntla. Intrigued, Phool researchers started experimenting. They sourced microorganisms from the jungle near the IIT Kanpur campus and fed the flower waste to different microbial strains, tweaking the temperature and humidity to see how it would grow under controlled conditions in a laboratory. Their initial experiments resulted in a thick styrofoam-type material that could be used in packaging. But the researchers soon realised that the texture of the microbial growth felt oddly familiar. "Someone in the team felt that the touch is leathery," Kuntla says. "So [we asked], can we create a fabric-like material? That was the thought process." So far Phool has been able to make several Fleather prototypes – wallets, sling bags, sandals and trainers They continued experimenting and cultured a couple of species together, says Kuntla. To help the microbes draw nutrients more efficiently and grow better, the researchers began feeding them in liquid form, by boiling the flower petals in water to extract the cellulose and lignin from them and adding some extra carbohydrates. "[The microorganism] feeds on that, and it grows," explains Aamen Talukdar, an associate research scientist at Phool. "It produces molecules that are similar to the molecules in leather." This was the beginning of Fleather, which Phool began producing in 2021. To make the material today, the team begins with small volumes of the microbes in flasks in an incubator which are gradually grown larger by feeding them on the nutrient-rich flower liquid. Once the free-flowing liquid turns into a thick slurry, indicating that the microbe has attained maturity, the mixture is poured in trays to nudge the fibrous growth to take the form of a continuous sheet. The tray is then rested for a few days during which an interconnected layer that resembles the rind on a brie cheese takes shape. It is then tanned using a tree-bark powder solution, dried, dyed and embossed with a snake or crocodile pattern. The end result is a soft, supple sheet that feels incredibly similar to animal hide leather. So far Phool has been able to make several Fleather prototypes – wallets, sling bags, sandals and trainers – which, at first glance at least, look quite satisfactory. A clutch made of Fleather, a fungi-based alternative to leather that is made by utilising flower waste generated in temples (Credit: Phool) A clutch made of Fleather, a fungi-based alternative to leather that is made by utilising flower waste generated in temples (Credit: Phool) However, the material currently falls short for items like belts that require tougher leather, says Kuntla. Leather's tensile strength ranges from 8 to 25 megapascals, he explains, whereas Fleather has been testing at around 6 to 10 megapascals. "Current experimentation is completely focused on how we can increase the fiber density… to get a stronger material," says Kuntla. Agarwal says he feels the company is "10% away from the final thing". "Once we get that, it can be the breakthrough that India gives to the world," he says. Most faux leather is made from plastic from fossil fuels, but sustainable leather alternatives made from bio-materials have been popping up all over the world But Fleather is already creating buzz. It was recently a finalist in the 2022 Earthshot Prize, which honours groundbreaking environmental solutions. Phool is now working with PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, on a Fleather pilot. PVH says it is currently at material development and testing phase of this project. A British luxury car maker and another American fashion retailer have also shown interest in Fleather, Agarwal says. Agarwal admits the idea is disruptive, more so because Fleather's birthplace Kanpur also happens to be the mecca of the Indian leather industry. But while Fleather might be the only eco-friendly leather in Kanpur, on the world stage, it is hardly alone. The rise of vegan leather Most faux leather is made from plastic from fossil fuels, but sustainable leather alternatives made from bio-materials have been popping up all over the world. (Read more about the fossil fuels used in our clothing) Last year, Nike partnered with London-based firm Ananas Anam to launch a line of sneakers made from pineapple leaf leather. In Mexico, Desserto makes material out of prickly pear cactus, while Italian startup Frumat has come up with apple skin leather. And earlier this year, Stella McCartney launched a line of fungi handbags. (Read about how fungal materials could open the door for a human colony on Mars). At Phool's research lab in Kanpur, flasks inside an incubator contain fungal microorganisms feeding on nutrition derived from temple flower waste (Credit: Sushmita Pathak) At Phool's research lab in Kanpur, flasks inside an incubator contain fungal microorganisms feeding on nutrition derived from temple flower waste (Credit: Sushmita Pathak) But these aren't always a perfect solution. "Compositions of most other plant-based alternatives utilise polymers as a binder in the production process that lead to them being partially non-biodegradable," say Charlotte Borst and Saatchi Doshi of Fashion For Good, an Amsterdam-based global initiative working on sustainable fashion. Not only is Fleather 100% biodegradable, they say, it is also more breathable than other alternatives. Phool, which was part of Fashion For Good's innovation programme in 2020, claims that Fleather decomposes entirely in about 90 days when buried in soil. "A positive trend is that more and more companies are now working on 100% plant-derived materials," write Borst and Doshi. They say that materials like Fleather that are derived from mycelium – the root-like structure of a fungus – "stand out as a unique category". Such materials can mimic the so-called grain of bovine leather, they say, and have a similar warm and supple touch and feel. For Fleather or any bio-based leather to truly capture the fashion world...durability and longevity are important considerations, says Mukta Ramchandani But the most high performing and biodegradable options are not yet scaled. Phool's small lab in Kanpur has a maximum capacity to manufacture about 9,000 sq ft (840 sq m) of Fleather each month, says Kuntla – enough to produce about 2,250 wallets. The biggest individual sheet they've grown so far is about 9 sq ft (0.8 sq m). Scaling up will mean figuring out how to grow larger Fleather sheets while maintaining quality. The pioneer in mycelium-based leather, according to Borst and Doshi, is New York-based firm Ecovative whose material can be grown in sheets of more than 450 sq ft (41 sq m) – a size and scale which they say is "unprecedented". Nachiket Kuntla, head of research and development at Phool, holds up a finished sheet of Fleather, which resembles delicate lamb skin leather (Credit: Sushmita Pathak) Nachiket Kuntla, head of research and development at Phool, holds up a finished sheet of Fleather, which resembles delicate lamb skin leather (Credit: Sushmita Pathak) Kuntla is confident sheet size won't be a constraint for Phool for long. The feedstock is also not a concern, he says. Studies have shown that a single temple can generate hundreds of kilograms of flower waste each day. And if that isn't enough, Kuntla says, they could also use agriculture stubble that farmers usually get rid of by burning, causing deadly air pollution across northern India each winter. Carbon Count The emissions from travel it took to report this story were 50kg CO2. The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view. Find out more about how we calculated this figure here. Another challenge is performance. For Fleather or any bio-based leather to truly capture the fashion world – particularly the luxury market – durability and longevity are important considerations, says Zurich-based independent sustainable fashion researcher Mukta Ramchandani. Luxury items, like Hermès leather handbags, for example, are passed down from generation to generation, she says, but it is doubtful if the same could be said for plant-based alternatives 20 years from now. Still, Fleather is "a really good innovation in the right direction", she says, and more research should be encouraged. Even though several fashion giants have launched pilots with bio-based leather alternatives, Ramchandani says it is unlikely that genuine leather will be completely phased out anytime soon. Borst and Doshi from Fashion for Good concur that vegan leather alternatives should be thought of "as a separate category as opposed to a like-for-like replacement for bovine leather". Agarwal's ambition, though, refuses to be tamed. "I want to make animal leather history," he says. "I'm not sure if that happens in my lifetime but yes, that will happen." |
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The environmental pros and cons of Christmas trees go far beyond the climate impact of "real or plastic", scientists say. So what's the best choice for a green Christmas? I In 1800, Queen Charlotte, the German wife of King George III, set up what is thought to be the first Christmas tree in England, at Queen's Lodge in Windsor. Decorated Christmas trees already had a long history in Germany, but they soon became a fashionable part of the festive season for the English upper classes, and by the 1850s were a common sight across the UK. Some two centuries later, the now cherished tradition of planting a newly cut tree in the middle of living rooms and covering it with lights and baubles is still alive and well across much of the world. Today, over eight million Christmas trees are sold annually in the UK, and an estimated 25-30 million are sold in the US. Real trees may also be coming back into fashion among younger generations – one recent US survey found millennials are 82% more likely than baby boomers to get a live tree. A millennial myself, I certainly fit this trend. I love real Christmas trees but have had countless conversations (and internal debates) about whether getting one is overindulgent wastefulness or an essential – and ultimately environmentally negligible – part of Christmas. I do think there's a lot more nuance to it, than just, 'Oh, we're cutting down a tree and removing it' – Alexandra Kosiba As I have delved further into the topic, though, I've found their assumed negative environmental impact may not be as clear cut as I once thought. These conversations often centre on the relative carbon footprint of real compared to plastic ones, but researchers say their wider influence, good or bad, goes far beyond this. "I do think there's a lot more nuance to it, than just, 'Oh, we're cutting down a tree and removing it'," says Alexandra Kosiba, a forest ecologist at the University of Vermont Extension. After all, before it is cut down and displayed, a Christmas tree is grown – on land that might otherwise be used for different purposes. In Vermont, for example, says Kosiba, Christmas tree plantations support the local economy and help to keep land as a rural landscape. How we use our land has become especially important in the face of two pressing and deeply connected environmental crises: biodiversity loss and climate change. Forests are a huge part of such beneficial land use. "Well-managed forests really play a huge role in the climate solution," says Andy Finton, landscape conservation director at The Nature Conservancy, a US-based environmental non-profit. "Trees of all sorts are pulling carbon from the atmosphere, and storing it and reducing the amount of carbon pollution and thus the pace of climate change." Christmas trees are grown for around 10 years before harvesting, so for every one cut down each year a further nine tend to stay standing (Credit: Ben Hasty/Getty Images) Christmas trees are grown for around 10 years before harvesting, so for every one cut down each year a further nine tend to stay standing (Credit: Ben Hasty/Getty Images) Christmas trees are certainly not a hugely significant use of land, or a big player in the global carbon cycle, especially compared to timber production or crops like maize or wheat. But they do provide an interesting area to consider, in part because many humans have far more direct engagement with them than perhaps any other forest product. "There's a lot of folks that don't interact with nature a lot," says Kosiba. "It is pretty cool to think all these people are bringing a tree [...] into their house [and] sort of revering it, and appreciating it." This festive appreciation may be a good opportunity to consider the wider role of different trees, and how and where they are grown. Christmas trees are typically young spruce, fir or pine trees from plantations, which means their environmental impact will always very much depend on what might be grown on land instead. It goes without saying that old growth forests, peatlands and other native habitats should never be used to plant Christmas trees. The plantations are grown for roughly 10 years before harvesting, meaning that for every tree cut down one year, another nine or so stay standing. "It's quite nice as a way of maintaining a set of trees, because you always need the new trees coming through to be harvested the following years," says John Kazer, footprint certification expert at the Carbon Trust, a UK-based environmental consultancy. Especially if the Christmas tree farm is part of a much larger landscape or a mosaic of habitat types, including mature, larger, intact forests, I think there's a real ecological niche that it's fulfilling – Andy Finton Christmas trees are not included in the EU pledge to plant three billion additional trees by 2030, as they are considered too short lived. "They are cut down more often than timber harvest or, of course, natural old growth forests," says Paul Caplat, an ecologist at Queen's University Belfast. "So there's not a lot of time for biodiversity to settle in and grow healthy populations." However, research has shown that Christmas tree plantations can provide a boost to biodiversity – especially in areas where it has been declining as agriculture becomes more intensified. This is because the plantations tend to have open habitat structures rich in bare ground, which can allow higher accessibility to food resources, while their trees can provide farmland birds with decent nesting conditions. They also tend to be less intensively managed than much industrialised agriculture, which also helps with food availability, while their fences can keep out the disruption from humans and dogs "Species that would have used a more extensive form of farming landscape in the past, but don't find all the resources they need in the more intensified agricultural setting, will find what they want in the Christmas tree plantation," says Caplat. |
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