The lithium ion battery has evolved as the major power source ever since it’s discovery in 1991 by Sony and represents one of the major successes of materials electrochemistry. Lithium ion batteries are becoming more and more popular in view of the multifarious applications arising from their high voltage and high power leading to light weight and smaller size cells/batteries. In view of the growing day to day demand for lithium ion batteries, intensive research is being pursued globally to develop new high performing cost effective electrode and electrolyte materials and importantly without compromising on environmental issues.

            In this talk, we shall give an overview of the recent work being focused by tailoring the carbon materials for developing high performing anode materials based on viz., reduced graphitic oxide (rGO), graphene nano structures (GNS), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MCNT), Bioderived and cathode materials under the national solar mission programme of CSIR.   Normally, graphite powders are employed as anode materials but we demonstrate a new type of lithium ion battery replacing the conventional graphite powder coated on to a copper foil which exhibits high performance even at high rates (2C) when cycled between 2.9 and 4.1V and finds applications in Solar Lanterns etc. These cells could be charged by solar energy. Furthermore, possible use of Sodium (Na) as an alternative to Lithium will also be highlighted.