Finland – Stora Enso and Northvolt will develop sustainable batteries that use lignin-based hard carbon made from regenerative wood from Nordic forests.
The goal is to create the first industrialized battery in the world with an anode made entirely of European raw materials, reducing both the cost and the carbon footprint.
Sunila site
Both businesses contribute important elements, skills, and expertise to the battery partnership. Lignode, a lignin-based anode material from sustainably managed forests, will be supplied by Stora Enso, and Northvolt will oversee cell design, the development of the production process, and the scaling up of the technology.
The cell walls of dry-land plants contain the polymer lignin, which is derived from plants. Lignin serves as a strong and organic binder in trees, where it makes up 20–30% of their total mass. It is one of the largest renewable carbon sources in the world.
The Group’s Sunila production site in Finland, where lignin has been produced industrially since 2015, is home to Stora Enso’s pilot plant for bio-based carbon materials. The group is assessing the viability of the Sunila site as the location for its first industrial production of Lignode.
