The use of transition group metals in electric batteries requires extensive usage of critical elements like lithium, cobalt and nickel, which poses significant environmental challenges. Replacing these metals with redox-active organic materials offers a promising alternative, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of batteries by one order of magnitude. However, this approach faces critical obstacles, including the limited availability of suitable redox-active organic materials and issues such as lower electronic conductivity, voltage, specific capacity, and long-term stability. To overcome the limitations for lower voltage and specific capacity, a machine learning (ML) driven battery informatics framework is developed and implemented. This framework utilizes an extensive battery dataset and advanced ML techniques to accelerate and enhance the identification, optimization, and design of redox-active organic materials. In this contribution, a data-fusion ML coupled meta learning model capable of predicting the battery properties, voltage and specific capacity, for various organic negative electrodes and charge carriers (positive electrode materials) combinations is presented. The ML models accelerate experimentation, facilitate the inverse design of battery materials, and identify suitable candidates from three extensive material libraries to advance sustainable energy-storage technologies.

Nissan Motor Co. is betting that its experience pioneering lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles over a decade ago will give it an upper hand in producing a new battery type that, despite being new and still relatively unproven, is considered by some as key to unlocking the future potential of EVs. Nissan is producing prototype solid-state battery cells -- which replace the electrical current-conducting liquid found in conventional batteries with a solid substance -- at a facility resembling a pop-up lab inside its research grounds near its Yokohama headquarters. The Japanese automaker plans to bring the new type of batteries to market by fiscal year 2028, readying a pilot plant for them ahead of that around 2024. If they can be manufactured, solid-state batteries would unlock cheaper, safer and faster-charging EVs, according to automotive executives and battery experts. Using different material combinations, Nissan predicts it will eventually be able to produce a solid-state battery pack that costs $65 (¥8,063) per kilowatt-hour -- a level at which analysts say EVs could reach price parity with gasoline-engine cars.