Stora Enso and Altris col­lab­or­ate to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ise world’s most sus­tain­able battery

Stora Enso has partnered with Altris, a Swedish developer of sodi­um-ion bat­ter­ies. The two com­pan­ies aim to fur­ther advance the devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­isa­tion of a sus­tain­able bat­tery value chain in Europe. Togeth­er, the two com­pan­ies will drive the adapt­a­tion of Stora Enso’s hard car­bon solu­tion Lignode® as an anode mater­i­al in Altris’ sodi­um-ion bat­tery cells.

Lignode® by Stora Enso is a sus­tain­able hard car­bon derived from lignin, a product from the man­u­fac­tur­ing of pulp, to be used as an anode mater­i­al in both lith­i­um-ion and sodi­um-ion bat­ter­ies. It serves as a more sus­tain­able altern­at­ive to cur­rent incum­bent anode solu­tions. In addi­tion to its sus­tain­ab­il­ity bene­fits, lignin makes up 20 – 30% of a tree, which makes it abund­antly avail­able already today. Lignin being a product from pulp man­u­fac­tur­ing ensures a stable and con­sist­ent raw mater­i­al sup­ply for anode mater­i­al man­u­fac­tur­ing. Lignode is developed in Stora Enso’s pilot plant in Kotka, Fin­land. Stora Enso is cur­rently upgrad­ing the plant from a tech­nic­al point of view.

Today, the sig­ni­fic­ant major­ity of bat­tery mater­i­als are sourced from out­side Europe. The part­ner­ship between Stora Enso and Altris aims to sup­port the estab­lish­ment of a European bat­tery value chain, fos­ter­ing the con­tin­ent’s sus­tain­able elec­tri­fic­a­tion. Stora Enso’s European-based oper­a­tions offer a loc­al­ised solu­tion that min­im­ises envir­on­ment­al impact and pro­motes energy inde­pend­ence.

​“Bio-based mater­i­als are key to improv­ing the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of bat­tery cells. With Lignode® hav­ing the poten­tial to become the most sus­tain­able anode mater­i­al in the world, this part­ner­ship with Altris aligns per­fectly with our com­mon com­mit­ment to sup­port the ambi­tion on more sus­tain­able elec­tri­fic­a­tion,” says Juuso Kont­tin­en, Seni­or Vice Pres­id­ent & Head of Bio­ma­ter­i­als Growth at Stora Enso.

​“At Altris, we strive to estab­lish a loc­al sup­ply chain and lever­age abund­ant and clean mater­i­als to devel­op sodi­um-ion bat­ter­ies. There­fore, it’s excit­ing to team up with Stora Enso and take part in their estab­lish­ment of a Europe-based tree-to-anode sup­ply chain. We are look­ing for­ward to the part­ner­ship evolving over the com­ing years, with the aim to com­mer­cial­ise the world’s most sus­tain­able bat­tery.” says Björn Mårlid, CEO of Altris. 

About Altris
Altris is a Swedish sodi­um-ion bat­tery developer and pro­to­type man­u­fac­turer. They devel­op cath­odes, elec­tro­lytes, bat­tery cells and fact­ory blue­prints to cre­ate mar­ket-lead­ing sodi­um-ion bat­ter­ies. Sprung out of the Ång­ström Labor­at­ory at Uppsala Uni­ver­sity, they are tak­ing our pat­en­ted innov­a­tion from con­cep­tion to com­mer­cial­iz­a­tion. The long-term goal is to become the primary sup­pli­er of sodi­um-ion bat­ter­ies in Europe, mak­ing a real impact on the world by enabling a bet­ter bat­tery at scale.