Battery Metals

Researchers have developed a new coin-type sodium-based battery that can charge rapidly “in seconds” and could potentially power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs) in the future.

By combining anode materials used in conventional batteries with cathodes from supercapacitors — batteries that can store and deliver energy at very high rates –– the scientists created a new type of sodium-ion battery that offers both high capacity and rapid-charging capabilities.

They were looking for a way to overcome the current limitations of sodium-ion energy storage — touted as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries — and described their findings in a study published March 29 in the journal Energy Storage Materials.

The new sodium-ion hybrid fuel cells could serve as a “viable next-generation alternative to lithium-ion batteries,” the researchers said in a joint statement, with applications ranging from laptops and mobile devices to electric vehicles and aerospace technologies.

Sodium is significantly more abundant than lithium –– up to 1,000 times more, the researchers said –– making sodium-ion batteries potentially cheaper and more sustainable to produce than the lithium-ion batteries currently used to power most EVs and consumer electronics.

However, existing sodium-ion batteries offer lower power output and storage capacity than lithium-ion batteries and take longer to charge, thus limiting their potential applications. In the new study, the researchers sought a way to tackle the shortcomings of the technology.

The research represents “a breakthrough in overcoming the current limitations of energy storage systems,” Jeung Ku Kang, lead author of the study and a professor of materials science and engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), said in the statement.

They achieved their prototype by developing a new type of anode from ultrafine iron sulfide particles embedded in sulfur-doped carbon and graphene. This improved conductivity and energy storage. For the cathode, they used a “zeolitic imidazolate framework” (ZIF) — a type of metal-organic framework that combines metal ions with organic molecules to create a porous, crystalline structure. This improved how quickly the battery could charge and discharge.

The team said the full cell, once assembled, achieved an energy storage capacity of 247 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg) and could deliver power at a rate of up to 34,748 watts per kilogram (W/kg). This means it could hold more energy for its weight than existing hybrid sodium-ion batteries and could charge and discharge power much more quickly, exceeding the performance of existing technology by more than 100 times.

The battery also maintained efficiency and performance over 5,000 charge and discharge cycles in tests, the researchers said, suggesting it could be used repeatedly over a long period without wearing out. This is crucial for applications where batteries need to last a long time without degrading, such as in grid energy storage systems and EVs. By comparison, many lithium-ion batteries used in commercial laptops, for example, can sustain up to 500 charge cycles before beginning to degrade.

MIT physicists and colleagues have unexpectedly discovered a new way to make a state of matter known as a strange metal. Strange metals are of interest for their unusual physics and because they have been found in the high-temperature superconductors key to several applications.

The work introduces a unique mechanism to create and study strange metals, whose electrons behave differently than those in a conventional metal like copper.

“It is a potential new approach to designing these unusual materials,” Joseph G. Checkelsky, principal investigator of the research, said in a media statement.

According to Checkelsky and his team, a new way of making strange metals will help them develop a unifying theory behind their behaviour.

“This has been quite challenging to date, and could lead to a better understanding of other materials, including high-temperature superconductors,” said Linda Ye, first author of a paper on the work published in Nature Physics.

How the research came to be

In 2018, Checkelsky reported on a class of quantum materials known as kagome metals. Members of the kagome metal family are composed of layers of atoms arranged in a lattice of repeating units similar to a Star of David or sheriff’s badge. The pattern is also common in Japanese culture, particularly as a basket-weaving motif.

“We were interested in the Kagome lattice because theory showed that it should host a variety of interesting features for electrons sitting on it,” Ye said.

Indeed, in a 2018 paper Ye, Checkelsky and colleagues including Riccardo Comin and Liang Fu reported that their new Kagome metal produced Dirac fermions, nearly massless particles similar to the photons that carry light.

“In that case, the Dirac fermions were more or less expected from calculations,” Ye said. But the strange metals discovered in the current work were completely unexpected, and “that’s really bringing us to a new regime.”

After they discovered the Dirac fermions, the researchers wanted to see if they could find an even more interesting feature in the Kagome lattice called a flat band. This is a phenomenon where the electrons essentially stand still, although each still spins around its own axis.

Getting electrons to stand still allows them to talk to each other. And that’s when all the interesting things in condensed matter physics happen.

Looking for a flat band

More specifically, the team was looking for a flat band at the Fermi level, which can be thought of as the surface of the ocean. They found it and began exploring the system’s electrical properties while subjected to high pressure and a magnetic field.

They discovered that the electrons in the flat band interact strongly with other electrons in the system. The result can again be compared to the ocean. Unperturbed electrons in the flat band can be thought of as a calm sea. Once they start interacting with others around them, the calm sea becomes a roiling storm with the electrons acting in two different ways. The result: a strange metal.

“We knew the flat band would result in something interesting, but we didn’t know exactly what it would give us. And what we found is a strange metal,” Ye said.

She noted that the work shows that the kagome lattice is a “very important design principle for new electronic states.” As a result, she now aims to extend the work to other lattices.

Swedish miner Boliden (STO: BOL) will resume production at its Tara zinc mine in Ireland after reaching an agreement with unions to lower costs, which will result a reduction of a third of the operation’s workforce.

Boliden halted Tara, Europe’s largest zinc mine, last year after prices of the metal hit a three-year low and the operation faced expensive energy costs and production challenges.

The miner plans to gradually ramp up Tara’s operations in the fourth quarter, with the expectation of reaching full capacity in January 2025. Exploration activities at the site will also be resumed.

The number of full-time workers will be reduced to approximately 400, down from the previous count of over 600 before the shutdown last year, Boliden said.

The company announced that it plans to record a restructuring cost of €30 million ($32m) in the second quarter tied to the job cuts and other organizational changes. The total impact on the quarter’s results, including previously disclosed costs for care and maintenance, is expected to be €43 million ($46m), Boliden said.

Zinc prices have recovered this year after hitting multi-year lows in 2023. The galvanizing metal is trading at $2,834 per tonne, about 5.7% higher than a year ago.

Climate scientists, for years, have urged governments around the world to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Wind and solar plants have increased in popularity in recent years but they both have a fundamental problem. Lapses in sunlight and wind caused by weather events can make it difficult to reliably capture and store all that energy, especially when attempting to supply power to large cities. The solution to the reliability issue are batteries, and lots of them.

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently argued these hordes of batteries will play a critical role in determining whether or not ambitious climate goals established by international experts are ever met. Recent innovations in lithium-ion battery tech have significantly lowered their costs which in turn is helping make switches to renewable energy power sources more viable for communities around the world. Battery prices by 2030, the report notes, could fall by 40%.

At the same time, increased demand for battery powered electric vehicles and energy produced from renewable sources means battery tech will need to get even cheaper in only a few short years in order to meet rising demands. All of this, according to IEA estimates, will require a six-fold increase in energy storage capacity by 2030. Cheap batteries will need to get even cheaper.

“Reducing emissions and getting on track to meet international energy and climate targets will hinge on whether the world can scale up batteries fast enough,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol wrote. “Batteries are changing the game before our eyes.”

Lithium-ion battery costs have fallen more than any other energy technology 

Though lithium-ion batteries are typically associated with gadgets and other consumer electronic gizmos, that’s increasingly no longer their main use case. In 2023, according to the IEA, the energy sector accounted for 90% of all battery demand. The total lithium-ion battery market has increased nearly ten times the size it was just eight years ago. Costs associated with those batteries have plummeted by 90% in just the past 15 years, according to the report. Overall, the report notes, batteries have seen the sharpest price drops of any energy technology to date. Those falling battery prices have led to more affordable electricity vehicles and solar energy offered at price points comparable to fossil fuels.

“The combination of solar PV (photovoltaic) and batteries is today competitive with new coal plants in India,” Birol said in a statement. “And just in the next few years, it will be cheaper than new coal in China and gas-fired power in the United States.”

As impressive as all those figures may sound, the IEA notes it still might not be nearly enough to support rising energy demands. In order to meet the United Nations’ goals of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, the IEA estimates global battery storage will need to increase by six times its current size. To do that, battery storage deployment will need to increase by an average of at least 25% every year. Batteries will need to have steep price drops while simultaneously maintaining or improving performance. The IEA estimates new innovations in battery chemistry and manufacturing could reduce lithium-ion costs globally by 40% between now and 2030. Battery manufacturing capacity is also currently limited to a select few countries, something the IEA says will need to change moving forward.

“A shortfall in deploying enough batteries would risk stalling clean energy transitions in the power sector,” the report reads.

What cheaper batteries mean for consumers 

Increased adoption of electric vehicles and renewables power sources are playing a meaningful role in efforts to cut back on emissions. While EV adoption in the US has slightly slowed compared to previous years, the trend globally is up. EV deployment increased by 40% in 2023, a figure which translated to 14 million EVs hitting roads. The IEA estimates the continually growing fleet of electric vehicles could displace the need for 8 million barrels of oil every day by the end of the decade. In practical terms, lower costs associated with batteries will translate to cheaper electric vehicles in the near future. US drivers repeatedly cite pricing as one of the primary factors preventing them from switching to an EV. More affordable models driven partly by falling battery prices could encourage more drivers to make a switch and could even help make a dent in the Biden Administration’s goal of having 50 percent of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030.

On the infrastructure side of the equation, cheaper energy storage prices means developing countries looking to create new power plants can choose more renewable options at prices comparable to non-renewable alternatives. Falling battery prices are also making it possible to deploy renewable microgrids in areas that are currently underserved by traditional energy grids.

In places like the US, a more reliable energy sector buttressed by batteries would further improve the country’s energy independence and cut down on the need to purchase fossil fuels from other countries. Renewable energy sources accounted for just 19% of the US energy grid in 2020 but affordable, more reliable storage could alter that dynamic. Researchers from Stanford provided some evidence of that scenario by recently running a simulation showing the possibility of the US maintaining a 100% renewable energy grid by 2050.

Batteries have a critical mineral problem 

Cheaper batteries, at least how they are currently manufactured, aren’t a silver bullet. Today, the global battery market is largely dependent on critical minerals sourced from a concentrated handful of countries. China alone accounts for more than half of material processing for lithium and cobalt. Extracting these minerals from the Earth is dangerous work and can create its own source of damaging pollution. Massive mines can also radically alter the environment of entire communities.

New types of batteries could offer some solutions to the mineral problem. Lithium ion phosphate (LFP) batteries, which are increasingly being used in new electric vehicles, rely on a different chemistry method which does not contain nickel or cobalt. Though more mineral intensive lithium-ion batteries still make up the vast majority of battery storage, (LFP) batteries accounted for 80% of new batteries made last year. Efforts to more effectively recycle aluminum, copper, and other resources found in mounding e-waste could also potentially help build out future batteries with less intensive mining. Less than 1% of rare earth metals found in e-waste are currently recycled.

North American graphite miners are lobbying the US government to impose a 25% tariff on three graphite products sourced from China in order to counter Beijing’s monopoly on a key material used in automobile batteries.

If successful, the move will pit the miners against their main customers- the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and add to tensions with China, which controls the majority of the critical metals used in the world’s electric vehicles and other motors.

The US government is set to decide in May whether to bring graphite into the list of minerals that attract the higher Section 301 tariff.

The Section 301 tariff was introduced by former US President Donald Trump after his administration found China’s “acts, policies and practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation are unreasonable and discriminatory”. Many other parts used in electric vehicles are also subjected to additional levies. China has called US 301 tariffs on its imports “discriminatory”.

Graphite was exempted because China accounts for 70% of global output of the material – used to make electric battery anodes, the negatively charged portion of the battery.

The graphite manufacturers depend on offtake agreements with automakers as a basis to raise capital from lenders, but if OEMs can secure cheaper graphite from China, there is no need for them to sign these offtake agreements.

The OEM lobby group opposes the higher tariff and argues that without a credible supply chain from North America it is forced to depend on China, and tariffs make them uncompetitive against Chinese auto makers.

The United States Trade Representative, the body responsible for imposing the levy, did not respond to a Reuters query on the inclusion of China-sourced graphite in the Section 301 list.

Graphite miners told Reuters that allowing the free flow of graphite from China into North America harms their chances of raising capital as auto makers would shun future offtake agreements if they could source graphite from China cheaply.

“If we don’t secure the project financing… we won’t be able to build a north American supply chain,” said Hugues Jacquemin, CEO of Montreal-based Northern Graphite.

Critical minerals such as lithium and graphite have become a flash point as western countries try and reduce their reliance on China for these metals that are key for energy transition.

In October last year Beijing imposed controls on graphite exports from the country to help “better safeguard national security and interests”.

Japan, the United States, India and South Korea are top buyers of China’s graphite according to its customs data.

“Trade protections must be enacted to blunt the effects of China’s ability to overproduce graphite and effectively control the global market,” said Erik Olson, spokesperson of North American Graphite Alliance, a group of Canadian and American graphite producers.