Sustainable Batteries—Quo Vadis?

Over the past 20 years, a revolution has been seen in battery research culminating with a much‐awaited Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019 for the development of Li‐ion batteries. New Li‐ion battery materials have been developed recently with improvements in performance. New Li battery chemistries have also emerged, exhibiting high energy density such as Li‐S, Li‐O2, Li‐metal with solid state electrolytes as well as zero‐excess Li anode metal batteries. This is tremendous progress and batteries are becoming more efficient and cheaper each year. Yet, most research in batteries is entirely focused on performance while the sustainability of all battery components making up the cell, as well as the battery chemistry itself are much overlooked. In this essay some perspectives are discussed and opinion is provided on the advancement of sustainability in battery research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]