SYSTEM DESIGN
Electric Dreams:Can we make our products more sustainable?
such as climate change have often been relegated into a distant second place. As developers, we have a responsibility to consider the impact the products we are developing will have, both in terms of the materials and the energy used to develop and manufacture the product itself and that used by the product during its lifetime. We also need to consider its end of its life: how easy and safe it’s disposal will be and by whom and can the component parts be recycled or reclaimed. These are again going to become important issues in the post- pandemic world. Today, batteries are still the power source
of choice, but we must look beyond the specification we require and consider where the materials it’s made from come from? How are they sourced? How available are they? And what is the likely demand for these materials in future? There are many choices we have today as
to what battery technology we can use, each offering different characteristics. We can choose a primary battery, which must be replaced after use, rechargeable batteries which can be recharged many times before they are unusable. Then we have the choice of battery technologies, using a wide range of materials both for the electrodes and the electrolyte. Many of these are difficult to
By Graeme Clark, principle engineer at Renesas Electronics T
he world is focused on the current Coronavirus pandemic and other issues,
source and raise questions about sustainability, safety and availability. We already have legislation, such as the EU battery directive that defines how they should be disposed of and by whom. It seems likely that this legislative trend will continue in the future, with tighter regulations around safety and sustainability. The drive towards electric vehicles is going
to have a major impact on batteries, driving battery efficiency but also impacting the availability. The demand for elements such as lithium and cobalt are increasing and are used in many of today’s batteries. The demand for these materials could increase significantly in the future. Forecasts estimate that supply will have to increase at least
tenfold to support the forecasted growth of electric vehicles. In 2019 there were around 7 million but are forecasted to increase to region of 200 million by 2030. These materials come from a few locations
around the world, the largest supplier of cobalt is the Democratic Republic of Congo, which currently supplies around 60% of the world’s production and has a history of illegal mining, human rights abuses and the use of child labour. The responsibility for the ethical behaviour of our supply chain is an issue for us all. Safety is another issue we must consider, as
some materials are dangerous, potentially toxic and sometimes flammable if not managed correctly. We all remember the
Table 1: Typical energy harvesting technology energy output 26 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2022 | ELECTRONICS TODAY
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