Battery Metals

SiTration, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spinoff startup company, announced it raised a $2.35 million pre-seed funding round led by Azolla Ventures. The funds are expected to accelerate hiring and support development of its novel conductive membrane technology for the recycling of critical materials in electric vehicle batteries, including lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

SiTration said its filtration membrane technology can reduce the energy used for recycling by as much as 10 times, while recovering over 95% of the critical materials in the battery.

“Our vision is to minimize impact and maximize circularity in the life cycle of critical materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel,” said Brendan Smith, co-founder and CEO of SiTration.

The conductive membrane technology has been under research and development in MIT for several years. It is now preparing for commercialization, boosted by the seed funding round and the MIT-affiliated E14 Fund.

The process replaces conventional chemical and thermal separation methods with an electrified approach. SiTration said the technology has broad applicability across several different global industries, and it views the critical materials supply shortage for producing lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles as the most pressing need. Annual global EV sales are expected to increase from three million units in 2020 to more than 60 million by 2040, creating a significant need for the efficient reuse of rare-earth metals.

“To meet automaker’s existing electrification plans, lithium supply must increase 15 times over – and even if more supply weren’t an imperative, vehicle makers are required by regulation to responsibly retire batteries at end of life,” said Matthew Nordan, general partner at Azolla Ventures and member of SiTration’s board of directors. “SiTration is poised to deliver a cleaner and more efficient recycling technique that will unlock low-cost reuse of critical battery materials.”

Automakers and suppliers, keen to fortify an EV supply chain and avoid raw materials shortages, are turning to a domain once overlooked: battery recycling.

Suddenly awash in interest from EV makers and venture firms, the sector has seen a spate of partnerships and funding deals in the past 18 months.

The momentum appears to be building, as investor appetite in battery recycling intensifies, said Alex Smout, principal at InMotion Ventures, Jaguar and Land Rover’s venture capital arm whose portfolio includes Ascend Elements, formerly known as Battery Resourcers.

“The supply side of batteries available for recycling is growing fast, and no one had really anticipated it,” Smout told TechCrunch. “So the ability for these companies to hit scale sooner than had been previously anticipated is really showing itself.”

The opportunity

About 15 million tons of lithium-ion batteries are expected to retire by 2030, the deadline most automakers have set for phasing out gas-engine vehicles, according to AquaMetals. The Nevada-based metals recycler expects the market for battery recycling to top $18.7 billion by the end of the decade.

The blank slate means that nimble startups and long-established players have an opportunity to set the industry’s direction.

Last month, Posh, a startup that automates EV battery recycling, raised $3.8 million in a seed round led by Y Combinator and Metaplanet. Its founders pivoted early this year from building high-end robots for the restaurant industry after they saw recalled Chevrolet Bolt batteries piling up in a warehouse. They instead looked to apply that technology to automate the battery recycling process.

“Right now, battery production is 100% automated, but battery recycling is 100% manual,” co-founder Wesley Zheng told TechCrunch.

Posh is working to change that equation, deploying its robot technology on the assembly line to break down battery packs.

“If you consider the timelines automakers have set for going fully battery-electric, in 2030 or 2035, you can see that this is going to be a huge problem if we don’t spend time doing what no one else is doing,” Zheng said.

Looming demand

Even the founder and CEO of Redwood Materials, one of the battery recycling industry’s dominant players, has said he worries the company is too late to meet demand.

J.B. Straubel, who is perhaps better known as the Tesla co-founder and former CTO, has raised $775 million from Amazon, Panasonic, Ford, T. Rowe Price and others in a bid to become one of the world’s largest battery recyclers. In June, Redwood announced a partnership with Toyota to collect, refurbish and recycle batteries and battery materials to send to the automaker’s upcoming North Carolina battery plant. The company also has partnerships with Ford and Volvo.

“If you look at the volumes of EVs we need to have on the roads five or 10 years from now, I feel like we’re too late in starting to build the infrastructure at scale to do this,” Straubel said at the Financial Times’ Future of the Car conference in May.

Many automakers hoping to avoid the same supply chain headaches experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic are pushing to become more vertically integrated and bring as much of the battery lifecycle in house.

For instance, Volkswagen Group formed a new company, PowerCo, to manage its global battery business, from raw materials to recycling. The automaker broke ground Thursday on the first of six battery factories it plans to build in Europe.

That drive toward vertical integration is prompting automakers to invest in startups along the entire lifecycle, from battery cell technology to recycling. In the last five years alone, $42 billion in venture capital and growth equity have been invested in the sector, according to a TechCrunch and PitchBook analysis. VW has backed solid-state battery company QuantumScape, BMW has invested in Our Next Energy and GM has put money into fast-charging battery startup Soelect as well as SolidEnergy Systems.

A growing pool

While much of the attention (and investment) has been directed at battery technology startups, recycling companies are starting to gain ground — meaning partnerships and investment — as well. Redwood Materials is perhaps the most visible and buzzy in the sector. However, there are many more companies out there in the world, from publicly traded enterprises like American Battery Technology Company, AquaMetals and Li-Cycle to startups like Ascend Elements and established companies such as Accurec Recycling and Retriev Technologies.

Most of the deals involving battery recycling fall into the partnership and investment category. However, there has been at least one acquisition within the industry. Last year, Cox Automotive acquired Spiers, a company that works with automakers to repair, replace or recycle EV batteries.

States, too, are vying for a slice of the burgeoning industry. Georgia has been particularly aggressive, engineering blockbuster recruitment deals and tax incentives to recruit the businesses needed to develop a closed-loop battery-electric ecosystem.

Not too long ago, solid-state battery technology was lingering in the lab like a lonely ghost, waiting to fulfill its promise of improved safety, range, durability, and recyclability compared to conventional lithium-ion EV batteries. Now the waiting is over. The Vietnamese electric vehicle startup VinFast is the latest automaker to climb on board the solid-state bandwagon, with big plans to shunt a pipeline of high performance EVs into the global market through a newly announced strategic partnership with the battery maker ProLogium.

The Solid-State Battery Revolution Is (Finally) Here

To be clear, EV buyers will have to wait until 2024 to get their hands on a next-generation VinFast EV. The ink has barely dried on a memorandum of understanding signed by the two companies last week, following an investment in Prologium by Vinfast of a significant but undisclosed sum.

“Under the strategic cooperation arrangements, ProLogium plans to provide solid-state battery cells to VinFast starting from 2024 to support its next generation line-up. ProLogium’s first major solid-state battery plant, which is slated to launch in early 2023, will devote a significant portion of the facility’s production capacity to supply VinFast,” Vinfast explains.

“In the future, ProLogium and VinFast may also establish a joint-venture solid-state battery factory in Vietnam,” they add.

As for why wait for a solid-state battery, there’s no reason to wait. With gas prices high, electric vehicles with conventional Li-ion batteries are looking mighty attractive these days.

The idea would be to get your EV now, and by the time you’ve put two or three years worth of mileage on the vehicle, the battery will still be in good shape for the used car market, where someone else is sure to snap it up. By 2024 or thereabouts you can go off to the local VinFast dealer and get your hands on a new EV with a new solid-state battery.

“Solid-state batteries are among the most promising technologies to offer advantages in terms of safety, energy density, hyper fast-charging capability, recyclability, weight optimization, costs, and lifetime,” VinFast enthuses.

What Is VinFast?

VinFast is not exactly a household name over here in the US, but it will be soon, if all goes according to plan. It crossed the CleanTechnica radar back in 2020, when the company recruited the iconic automotive engineering and design firm Pininfarina to style its look.

The company was already eyeballing long range at an affordable price, anticipating 310 miles or about 10 days’ worth of driving for the average US driver (check out our VinFast archive for more news).

If that sounds rather ambitious, it is. However, VinFast did not pop up out of nowhere. Here, let’s have parent company Vingroup JSC, explain it.

“Vingroup, formerly known as Technocom Corporation, was founded in 1993 in Ukraine. In the early 2000s, Vingroup started in Vietnam with two key brands: Vincom and Vinpearl. In January 2012, Vinpearl JSC merged with Vincom JSC to form Vingroup Joint Stock Company.

As a multi-sector corporation, Vingroup focuses on three core pillars:

– Technology & Industry

– Trade & Services

– Social Enterprise

…Vingroup has created a respected, well-recognized Vietnamese brand and is proud to be one of the nation’s leading private enterprises.”

“Selling electric vehicles in the US is the name of the game,” we noted back in 2020, following up on a Bloomberg article from December 2019. The article described Vingroup’s Pham Nhat Vuong as “the Southeast Asian country’s richest man,” who is “so intent on exporting electric vehicles to the lucrative American market in 2021 that he’s plowing as much as $2 billion of his own fortune to reach that goal.”

For the record, the hands-on steering of the company is in the hands of Ms. Le Thi Thu Thuy, Vingroup Vice Chairwoman and VinFast Global CEO, who made it clar that VinFast intends to “quickly master the supply of solid-state batteries while continuing to deliver EV products with advanced battery technology.”

US Automakers & The Solid-State Battery Of The Future

Not to be caught napping, the Big Three US automakers have been eyeballing solid-state battery technology as well. General Motors, for example, included room for the solid-state battery firm POSCO when it announced strategic suppliers as part of a new $7 billion investment plan earlier this year.

Last year Ford also announced a strategic solid-state battery partnership with BMW, and Stellantis hooked up with Mercedes-Benz with an eye on the US energy storage startup Factorial Energy.

VinFast intends to be in the mix. A new factory in North Carolina is in the works, with plans for electric buses and other industries as well as battery-operated passenger cars.

Our friends over at Automotive News also scooped the news on VinFast’s dealership plans for the US last week. If you’re anywhere near the California cities of Santa Monica, San Diego, San Mateo, Corte Madera, Commerce, or Berkeley, keep an eye out for the first six locations, which should be up and running by the end of this year. Another two dozen locations are also slated, for a total of 30.

The EV Revolution Has Only Just Begun

As for why all the interest in solid-state battery tech all of a sudden, that’s easy. Conventional Li-ion technology is based on a liquid electrolyte, which requires an additional layer of engineering and design in order to run efficiently. For all the improvements in range and charging time since the early 2000s, the cost of an Li-ion battery is still the biggest hurdle between EVs and the mass market.

Replacing the liquid with a solid opens up new opportunities to simplify the battery system and harvest all the bennies that come with simplification, including longer range and faster charging times along with lower costs.

There being no such thing as a free lunch, solid-state battery tech is not free of kinks. However, scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are among those in hot pursuit of workarounds that bring the batteries to market, and they had this to say last February:

“…solid-state lithium-ion batteries, which consist of entirely solid components, have become increasingly attractive to scientists because they offer an enticing combination of higher safety and increased energy density — which is how much energy the battery can store for a given volume.”

Keep an eye on those Argonne scientists. They are leading an energy storage research team that has identified a next-generation solid electrolyte, which consists of lithium, scandium, indium, and chlorine.

“One chemical key to the ionic conductivity lay in the material’s crisscrossing 3D structure called a spinel,” the lab explains. “The researchers had to balance two competing desires — to load the spinel with as many charge carrying ions as possible, but also to leave sites open for the ions to move through.”

It could be a while before the Argonne solid-state battery gets out of the lab, but in the meantime there is plenty of solid-state action heading for the street. Keep an eye out for more solid-state energy storage news from other automakers, too.

Gold is bound for its worst week in more than a year despite a slight recovery on Friday, as the haven metal continues to be affected by the US dollar’s ascent and expectations of steep interest rate hikes.

Spot gold rose 0.2% to $1,744.47 per ounce, having hit a nine-month low earlier in the week. US gold futures were also up 0.2% to $1,742.60 per ounce in New York.

Lately, gold has failed to attract safe-haven flows despite growing recessions risks as investors have instead opted for the US dollar, which has marched to fresh two-decade highs amid rising bets on aggressive rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve.

The notion of another 75-basis-point rate hike by the Fed gained further traction following the latest employment data, which showed US job growth increased more than expected in June and the unemployment rate remained near pre-pandemic lows.

“The jobs data pushed down gold, already struggling after such a strong dollar rally. However, there is some bargain hunting coming through in gold here,” RJO Futures senior market strategist Bob Haberkorn, said in a Reuters note.

In its mid-year 2022 outlook report, the World Gold Council recently stated that gold, given its strategic and tactical role as a hedging asset, will likely remain relevant to investors during the second half of the year, particularly while uncertainty is elevated.

On the technical front, gold’s break below the $1,760 level could signal a further slide to $1,720, and potentially towards the 2021 lows near $1,680, said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

Electric vehicle battery maker Northvolt on Tuesday announced a $1.1 billion funding boost, with a range of investors — including Volkswagen and Goldman Sachs Asset Management — taking part in the capital raise.

In a statement, Sweden-based Northvolt said the $1.1 billion convertible note would be used to finance the company’s “expansion of battery cell and cathode material production in Europe to support the rapidly expanding demand for batteries.”

Other investors in the raise include Baillie Gifford, Swedbank Robur, PCS Holding and TM Capital.

Northvolt recently said its first gigafactory, Northvolt Ett, had started commercial deliveries to European customers. The firm says it has orders amounting to $55 billion from businesses such as Volvo Cars, BMW, and Volkswagen.

Gigafactories are facilities that produce batteries for electric vehicles on a large scale. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been widely credited as coining the term.

Northvolt’s most recent funding announcement comes at a time when major European economies are laying out plans to move away from road-based vehicles that use diesel and gasoline.

The U.K., for instance, wants to stop the sale of new diesel and gasoline cars and vans by 2030. It will require, from 2035, all new cars and vans to have zero-tailpipe emissions. The European Union — which the U.K. left on Jan. 31, 2020 — is pursuing similar targets.

As the number of electric vehicles on our roads increases, the competition to develop factories capable of manufacturing EV batteries at scale is intensifying, with companies like Tesla and VW looking to establish a foothold in the sector.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Northvolt’s CEO and co-founder, Peter Carlsson — who previously worked for Tesla — was bullish about the future.

“The combination of political decision making, customers committing even more firmly to the transition to electric vehicles, and a very rapid rise in consumer demand for cleaner products, has created a perfect storm for electrification,” he said.

According to the International Energy Agency, electric vehicle sales hit 6.6 million in 2021. In the first quarter of 2022, EV sales came to 2 million, a 75% increase compared to the first three months of 2021.

Copper prices extended a decline on Tuesday as aggressive interest rates, a spike in covid-19 cases in China, potential recession, and rising inventories weighed on investor sentiment.

Copper for delivery in September fell 4.8% from Monday’s settlement, touching $3.43 per pound ($7,546 per tonne) Tuesday morning on the Comex market in New York, the lowest since November 2020.

The most-traded August copper contract in Shanghai ended daytime trading down 1.9% to 60,110 yuan ($8,975.66) a tonne by midday trade.

“There was a bull trap set early at the open today as S&P and Nasdaq futures pointed higher. However, the rest of the bearish sentiment is just because of recession fear, which is almost certain for most US and Europe already,” a Singapore-based metals trader said.

Pulling down economic activity and inducing recession fears are soaring inflation and interest rate increases in many countries, including the United States, where the Federal Reserve is expected to deliver another 75-basis-point increase this month.

Meanwhile, copper stocks in LME-approved warehouses jumped 10,100 tonnes to 136,950 tonnes. They have risen more than 20% over the past week.

Cities in eastern China tightened covid curbs on Sunday as coronavirus clusters emerged.