Battery Metals

Indian conglomerate Tata has confirmed Bridgwater in Somerset as the site of its new £4 billion battery factory which will bring about 4,000 jobs to the region.

Tata’s battery business Agratas said that it had bought land at the Gravity Smart Campus off the M5 just outside the town.

Tata confirmed in July last year that it had chosen to build its next so-called gigafactory in the UK. It secured about £500 million in UK Government subsidies to do so.

It did not confirm where it was planning on constructing the facility, but Bridgwater had been widely tipped as the most likely. The site used to be home to a factory which produced high explosives for military use and which closed in 2008.

“Our multi-billion-pound investment will bring state-of-the-art technology to Somerset, helping to supercharge Britain’s transition to electric mobility whilst creating thousands of jobs in the process,” said Agratas chief executive, Tom Flack.

The company said that it would be getting in touch with local residents this week to tell them about the project.

Preliminary activity has already started on the site, and work to establish the factory’s foundations will start in the spring. Battery production will begin in 2026 according to the current schedule.

As the UK and global car industry retools to produce electric cars rather than more polluting petrol or diesel alternatives, the batteries needed to propel these cars are becoming increasingly important.

MPs on the Business and Trade Committee in November warned that 160,000 jobs in the UK would be imperilled if the country cannot supply the batteries that these car manufacturers will need.

The plans announced at that point – including Tata’s 40 gigawatt hour (GWh) plant – were only enough to cover about half the 100 GWh of production the UK will need by 2030.

Agratas said that Tata Motors and Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover would be its first customers. It also plans to create batteries for commercial energy storage, two-wheelers and commercial vehicles.

Councillor Bill Revans, leader of Somerset Council, said: “This is momentous for the county, its economy and for future generations.

“It’s about seizing an incredible opportunity to be at the heart of the UK’s green energy industry that will create thousands of highly-skilled, well-paid, green jobs.”

Investment minister Lord Johnson of Lainston said: “This is fantastic news for Somerset, and will create 4,000 direct jobs plus thousands more in the wider supply chain.

“We’re committed to making the UK one of the very best places in the world for automotive investment, and Tata Group’s decision to build its gigafactory here shows once again that this Government’s plan for the car industry is working.”

A new partnership is promising 133 jobs for Liberty, North Carolina.

Fujihatsu Tech America, Inc., and Toyota Tsusho America, Inc., will join to form Fujihatsu & Toyotsu Battery Components, North Carolina LLC (FTBC) and invest $60 million to expand an electric vehicle battery plant, the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina announced on Monday.

The new company is 60% owned by Fujihatsu Tech America, Inc., which will lend its technical expertise to the project, and 40% by Toyota Tsusho America Inc., which will provide administrative and operational support.

The project which will manufacture and sell cases and covers to meet the increasing demand for automotive and electric vehicle (EV) batteries. This new facility will support Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina.

“North Carolina’s reputation as a leader in the clean energy and EV industries is not only attracting flagship companies like Toyota, but key players in the EV supply chain,” said Christopher Chung, CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC). “Our state’s world-class education system, customizable workforce development programs and the largest manufacturing workforce in the Southeast also provide the support companies like FTBC need to succeed. We look forward to FTBC being a part of North Carolina’s clean energy economy.”

Since 2021, Toyota has announced investments totaling $13.9 billion and the creation of 5,000 jobs in North Carolina.

A group led by researchers at Nagoya University in Japan has created a material based on fullerene indanones (FIDO), which promises to improve the durability of next-generation solar cells. Durability has been one of the biggest hurdles in their practical application and commercialization. The researchers published their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The next generation of solar cells will probably use perovskite-based cells. These crystal-based cells are highly efficient, even generating electricity indoors under weak light conditions. They are also lighter and more flexible than conventional silicon solar cells. As a result, they are more suitable for installation on vertical surfaces, such as windows and walls.

Many of the unique properties of these solar cells come from fullerene (C60). Its unique shape, which resembles a soccer ball, makes fullerene instantly recognizable. Fullerenes are carbon-based semiconductors that can channel electrons to create power, making them essential for organic electronics. Researchers can attach organic molecules to fullerenes to enhance their electronic function, thereby creating derivatives with different properties.

The group led by Professor Yutaka Matsuo from the Institutes of Innovation for Future Society added indanone to fullerene to create FIDOs. Indanone is a useful compound in reactions. It has a unique structure of fused rings that create strong carbon links between the fullerene and the benzene part of the indanone. This creates an arrangement with excellent stability even when heated.

Using FIDO, Matsuo and his collaborators controlled the film to create an amorphous material instead of the more common crystalline material found in the currently used silicon solar cells. Amorphous materials have a more random structure than carefully organized crystals. This randomness allows amorphous films to be engineered to have specific properties by adjusting the deposition conditions and tailoring the electrical characteristics of the film to meet the requirements of solar cell technology.

When they compared their new technology with a standard film, they found that their new film had many advantages. Unlike the conventional film, it was more efficient and stable, and these properties did not degrade. Importantly, there was no decrease in conversion efficiency.

“Our amorphous film does not crystallize upon heating and shows excellent morphological stability,” Matsuo said. “A problem with films is that when heated to 150°C, the degree of crystallization increases. Our newly developed film is an amorphous thin film after deposition and remains amorphous even when heated.”

The group sees a range of uses for their technique. “These fullerene derivatives are expected to be used not only for perovskite solar cells but also for photoelectric conversion elements, such as organic photodiodes and in organic photodetectors,” Matsuo said. “Organic photodetectors contribute to the high resolution of imaging sensors in cameras and will be used in fingerprint authentication on smartphone displays, allowing unlocking from any part of the screen touched by a finger.”

Aluminum slid and nickel pared earlier gains after a package of US sanctions omitted any major curbs on Russian industrial metals.

The action announced on Friday included measures against more than 500 people and entities linked to Russia’s war machine, but left the country’s base metals industries unscathed. The two metals had been buoyed this week by expectations that the package might put pressure on supplies.

Nickel, which had steadily gained this week in anticipation of the sanctions news, pared an earlier advance of as much as 1.2% to trade just 0.3% higher. Aluminum retreated as much as 1.1% on Friday.

In the aluminum market, prices had touched the highest since early February on Wednesday, following US President Joe Biden’s earlier announcement that new sanctions would be imposed in response to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. The latest wave of US measures also comes on the eve of the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The absence of new measures turned the focus back to market fundamentals.

“Aluminium has erased all the gains this afternoon after being buoyed this week by speculation of sanctions,” ING Groep NV commodities strategist Ewa Manthey said.

“Now the focus moves back to demand side woes including the challenging macro backdrop in China and higher borrowing costs and the uncertain path of US Fed’s easing cycle. We believe global economic uncertainty will continue to weigh on the outlook for aluminium.”

Nickel was still set for a gain of more than 6% this week, the biggest weekly advance since July. The bounce in nickel may have been fueled by earlier short covering from wrong-footed hedge funds, according to Saxo Bank A/S commodity strategist Ole Hansen.

Still, that market remains oversupplied, Manthey said earlier.

Russia’s metals and mining industry escaped blanket restrictions until last December, when the UK — home of the London Metal Exchange — announced its own curbs. But some consumers and traders have balked at buying Russian metal for some time, and the UK’s steps just added to the growing complexity of handling material from the country.

Nickel traded at $17,450 a ton on the LME at 4:09 p.m. London time. Aluminum slid 0.9% to $2,178.50 a ton, while copper fell 0.4%.

With relatively low costs and a more robust supply chain than conventional lithium-ion batteries, magnesium batteries could power EVs and unlock more utility-scale energy storage, helping to shepherd more wind and solar energy into the grid. That depends on whether or not researchers can pick apart some of the technology obstacles in the way. The going has been slow, but recent developments indicate that things are moving in the right direction.

Magnesium Batteries Solve Their Dendrite Problem

Magnesium batteries have been talked up quite a bit since the early 2000s. They dropped off the CleanTechnica radar about five years ago, but some key advances are beginning to crop up, and now would be a good time to catch up (see our magnesium archive here).

One particularly interesting piece of news involves the dendrite problem, which are the tiny fernlike growths that form inside rechargeable batteries, leading to short circuits and a shorter lifespan. Dendrites are a familiar challenge in the lithium-ion field, and magnesium batteries can suffer the same indignities.

That particular problem has been resolved by a multinational research team based at RMIT University in Australia, which has been working on an aqueous metal-ion magnesium energy storage formulation. Also called a “water battery,” the device uses water instead of the organic electrolytes deployed in lithium-ion batteries.

Aqueous magnesium batteries are plagued by a number of challenges, including low voltage, which is a potential deal breaker. Nevertheless, so far the team has achieved an energy density of 75 watt-hours per kilogram, which team leader and RMIT Distinguished Professor Tianyi Ma describes as 30% of the density of the newest Tesla EV batteries.

The team used protective coatings of bismuth and bismuth oxide to prevent dendrites, which brings the lifespan of their battery to a level that compares favorably with lithium-ion batteries according to Ma.

“With impressive capacity and extended lifespan, we’ve not only advanced battery technology but also successfully integrated our design with solar panels, showcasing efficient and stable renewable energy storage,” Ma emphasized.

The Magnesium Advantage

Lifespan is just one of the technology challenges that magnesium batteries need to overcome, so at this point it’s worth pausing to ask why researchers are pursuing magnesium technology, when lithium-ion batteries are already here, now, and on the market.

That’s a good question. Part of the answer has to do with battery safety and lifecycle. The use of a water electrolyte provides magnesium batteries with two distinct advantages, one being the elimination of safety risks that can be posed by the organic electrolytes used in conventional lithium-ion batteries. The other advantage is a more eco-friendly end-of-life scenario.

“Addressing end-of-life disposal challenges that consumers, industry and governments globally face with current energy storage technology, our batteries can be safely disassembled and the materials can be reused or recycled,” Ma notes.

“We use materials such as magnesium and zinc that are abundant in nature, inexpensive and less toxic than alternatives used in other kinds of batteries, which helps to lower manufacturing costs and reduces risks to human health and the environment,” he adds.

Another project aimed at reducing environmental hazards surfaced last summer, when a research team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology published a study that describes an additive-free, simple salt formula for aqueous magnesium-ion batteries.

“Our activation strategy enabled the efficient cycling of Mg full-cell candidates using commercially available electrolytes, thereby offering possibilities of building practical Mg batteries,” they reported.

Meanwhile, last year, a research team in China developed an aqueous battery with a copper foam add-on to work around the voltage issue. They reported “exceptional performance with an ultra-high capacity (205 mAh g^-1 , 243 Wh kg^-1 at 5 A g^-1 )” for their new battery, “as well as excellent cycling stability after 600 cycles and rate capability (138 mAh g^-1 , 81 Wh kg^-1 at 10 A g^-1 ).”

Magnesium Batteries And The Energy Transition

Circling back to the benefits of adding magnesium batteries to the planet-saving toolkit, another factor to consider is the rapid acceleration of the energy storage field. In an interview published in 2022, Argonne National Laboratory chemist Brian Ingram noted lithium-ion batteries are doing just fine — for now.

“However, as the energy storage landscape continues to evolve into other applications and energy sectors — particularly in terms of decarbonizing our future — energy storage will face new technical and cost challenges that will require us to find cheaper batteries, better supply chains, faster charging rates, discharge over longer periods, improved safety and longer lifetimes,” Ingram explained.