BASF Toda Battery Materials (BTBM), a Japan-based maker of cathode materials established by Germany-based BASF and Japan-based Toda Kogyo on a joint-venture basis, will expand production capacity for cathode active materials (CAM) used in lithium batteries, with the expansion to begin in fourth-quarter 2022 and the additional production capacity to come into operation in second-half 2024, according to Toda.
With BASF and Toda holding 66% and 34% stakes respectively, BTBM set up a factory in Yamaguchi Prefecture, southwestern Japan, for R&D and production of nickel-cobalt-aluminum and nickel-cobalt-manganese cathode materials of lithium ternary batteries in 2015.
The expansion is to cope with fast growing demand for lithium batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) and to increase supply of high-nickel CAM for battery makers in Japan, Toda president Shigeru Takaragi said. The expansion is among Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s (METI) projects of promoting investment by domestic supply chain makers and therefore eligible for METI’s subsidization, Takaragi noted.
BTBM’s annual CAM production capacity will increase to 6.0 metric tons in 2025, enough to support EV-use power batteries of 45GWh in power capacity.
According to METI, BTBM occupied about 14% of global supply of nickel-cobalt-aluminium cathode material in 2020, ranking third next to Japan-based Sumitomo Metal Mining with 49% and South Korea-based EcoPro with 28%.
