The demand for EV batteries is on the rise. However, they contain harmful synthetic chemicals called PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.” Researchers and scientists at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) are trying to change that.

Forever Chemical-Free Batteries

Small batteries like this coin cell battery use small amounts of PFAS, but larger batteries use "forever chemicals"
Small batteries like this coin cell battery use small amounts of PFAS, but larger batteries use “forever chemicals”; Photo: Stephen L. Garrett

As the demand for batteries rises, so does the use of PFAS. “To address our needs as a society for electric vehicles and energy storage, we are coming up with more environmental challenges,” said Chibueze Amanchukwu, assistant professor at UChicago PME. The team published two papers recently showing their design of two new families of PFAS-free solvents. Researchers and scientists say the designs make “ideal components for next-generation batteries.”

Ideally, their goal is to get ahead of PFAS pollution, allowing future scientists to develop batteries using a suite of safe but powerful chemicals, turning “forever chemicals” into “never chemicals.”

“We need next-generation batteries, but for most of the current research, they are using PFAS,” said Peiyuan Ma, the first author of both papers. “That’s why we started doing our research, to give people at least a chance to use the non-PFAS materials.”

PFAS are commonly found in batteries, but they’re also found in everything from wrappers and shampoo to equipment and clothing. It’s a commonly used chemical in non-stick pans and water-resistant materials. However, the same chemicals resisting water make them difficult to remove when they get into the water supply.

“In our work, we tried to extract some fundamental understanding of the interactions between the battery materials, we try to understand, how those materials interact, and why some interactions are important to make the battery work well,” Ma said. “We realized there’s no fundamental requirement of having PFAS to make the battery work.”

While the team works on the new design, they’re aware of the challenges ahead, including environmental arguments in the future.

“There’s risk we take bringing new materials to market in general, regardless of environmental regulations,” Amanchukwu said. “But there’s even greater risk to bringing a new material to the market with the possibility that somebody might say in 10 years or 15 years, ‘This is illegal. You can’t make this anymore.’”