Lithium News

Vietnamese EV automaker VinFast is continuing its lightning-fast growth and expansion by announcing a long-term, strategic partnership with solid-state battery manufacturer ProLogium. Following a signed Memorandum on Understanding, ProLologium will provide solid-state battery cells to VinFast vehicles beginning in 2024.

VinFast is an automotive manufacturing subsidiary of VinGroup, a multifaceted Vietnamese conglomerate dabbling in everything from healthcare to five-star resorts and even theme parks. At the LA Auto Show last fall, we got our first glimpse of the automaker’s first two EVs – the VF 8 and VF 9.

At the same time, VinFast shared news it would be entering markets in North America and Europe as well as setting up a US headquarters in Los Angeles. Although we expected to hear pricing at the LA Auto Show, it wasn’t until this past January that the automaker shared MSRPs for the US and EU. Even so, we didn’t get realistic pricing that reflected its battery subscription model until this past April.

Since then, VinFast has shared plans for fifty retail locations in Europe as well as perks for new customers in the EU, US, and Canada that include years of complimentary charging sessions and/or free home chargers. While we await the first deliveries of VinFast’s first two EVs, we have learned that future models may include solid-state batteries, thanks to a new agreement with ProLogium.

Solid-state batteries are coming to VinFast EVs in 2024

According to a press release out of Vietnam this morning, VinFast’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ProLogium includes an investment of “tens of millions of dollars.” The exact amount has not yet been revealed.

As part of VinFast’s investment in ProLogium’s solid-state battery technology, the two will become long-term strategic partners, developing battery pack designs to adhere to the parameters outlined by the Vietnamese automaker. Vingroup Vice-Chair and VinFast Global CEO Madam Le Thi Thu Thuy spoke about the new agreement:

VinFast has focused on investing and building strategic partnerships with leading companies in the industry and breakthrough technology companies to quickly grasp and apply technologies for smart and sustainable mobility solutions. ProLogium is one of our key partners, helping VinFast quickly master the supply of solid-state batteries while continuing to deliver EV products with advanced battery technology for a more enjoyable and safer driving experience.

ProLogium was founded in 2006 and has since filed over 500 patents for its proprietary solid-state battery technologies. Furthermore, the company’s solid electrolyte is 100% recyclable and can be reused for creating new battery cells.

As one of the first manufacturers to mass-produce solid-state lithium ceramic batteries, ProLogium has earned development agreements with other Ev automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, this past January. Under its new strategic cooperation arrangements with VinFast, ProLogium will provide solid-state battery cells to VinFast beginning in 2024 to support the automaker’s next generation of EVs.

According to the press release, ProLogium will devote a significant portion of the production capacity at its first major solid-state battery plant to VinFast. That facility will house 3 GWh of power (equivalent to 30,000 EVs capacity at 100kWh per unit) and is scheduled to launch in Asia in early 2023. Looking ahead, ProLogium and VinFast continue to discuss the establishment of a joint-venture solid-state battery factory in Vietnam. ProLogium also has plans to establish solid-state battery manufacturing footprints in the US and Canada as well.

Lithium Ion-based batteries are among the most effective and widely used battery technologies. However, the batteries’ electrolytes mainly contain organic carbonated solvents, which are considered highly flammable with a narrow temperature window. To ensure that they don’t catch fire while operating at extreme temperatures, engineers must design safer electrolytes that are not only non-flammable, but also able to operate at a wide temperature range.

Researchers in the University of California San Diego’s Shirley Meng group and at the Army Research Laboratory have recently developed new liquefied gas electrolytes that could be used to produce lithium-metal batteries that can operate safely from -60 to 55 ^oC. These electrolytes have a unique structure, outlined in a paper published in Nature Energy, which make them capable of extinguishing fire.

“The liquefied gas electrolyte (LGE) was firstly conceptualized by our research group in a paper published in Science in 2017 and has been developed over five years,” Yijie Yin, one of the researchers who are working in this field from Prof. Meng’s lab, told TechXplore. “It consists of a variety of fluorocarbon gases, that when put under pressure, liquefies to form a chemically stable, low-freezing point, low-cost electrolyte.”

Compared with many state-of-the-art electrolytes introduced in previous papers, the LGEs designed by Yin and his colleagues are highly compatible with lithium metal batteries. In initial tests with a Li anode, it attained a performance of 99.6% average Coulombic efficiency (CE) over 500 cycles and was able to cycle 18650 cells under extreme conditions.

The initial LGEs designed by the team were based on fluoromethane (FM) and difluoromethane (DFM). Despite their advantages, these electrolytes were still flammable under moderate operating pressures.

“To overcome the safety concerns unveiled by our previous tests, we enshrined the safety features of the LGEs by incorporating clean fire-extinguishing agents into their composition, a capability unique only to LGE systems,” Yin explained. “1,1,1,2 tetrafluoroethane (TFE) and pentafluoroethane (PFE) are fire-extinguishing solvents, but also maintain low-freezing point, low-cost with reduced vapor pressure.”

The new LGE introduced in the team’s recent paper is made up in great part (i.e., above 80% of its volume ratio) of the clean, fire-extinguishing components TFE and PFE. This greatly increases their safety, drastically reducing the risk that lithium-metal batteries will catch fire at high temperatures.

“We also added a dimethyl ether to dissolve salts and form a highly concentrated salt-to-ether ratio electrolyte to provide a wide electrochemical window and stable interfaces towards Li and the cathode,” Yin said. “Owing to their low vapor pressure (~ 5 atm), the liquefied gas solvents could be easily recycled based on their vapor pressure difference at different temperatures.”

Most existing lithium-ion batteries use flammable electrolytes that cannot operate below
-20 ^oC and can overheat devices during overcharging. In the future, the LGE introduced by Yin and his colleagues could substitute some of these electrolytes, helping to improve the safety of lithium-based battery technology.

Due to their unique solvation structure, the electrolytes were developed not only maintain near constant conductivity over a wide temperature range of more than 130 degrees, but also ensure that the Li⁺ cation is a dominant transport specie instead of the anions in the current liquid electrolytes. Both these factors help with increasing battery rate performance allowing battery operations at low temperature.

In their recent experiments, Yin, Borodin and their colleagues demonstrated the many advantages of their improved LGE design, including their performance, their resilience to wide temperatures, and their sustainability. In addition, their approach highly unique, as it revisits some of the fundamentals of electrolyte design for battery technologies.

“Since dimethyl ether is a newly reported solvent, it features simplest ether which potentially be compatible with Li metal. It also has outstanding physical properties and electrochemically transport properties,” Yin added. “We now plan to tap dimethyl ether’s potential in other battery research—for example, batteries operating at ultra-low temperature. The pursuit of high-voltage (>4.5 V) batteries is also our interest. Our paper hasn’t addressed the high-voltage stability and we will further develop our electrolyte to reach that goal as well as maintaining performance versatility as our Nature Energy paper reported.”

Lithium and battery producers warned the European Union that a proposal to classify the metal as a reproductive toxin could severely hurt Europe’s burgeoning electric-vehicle industry.

The material is a key part of EV batteries and widely used in pharmaceuticals, industrial lubricants and specialty glasses. A proposal being considered by the European Commission this month would put some lithium chemicals in the highest category of reproductive and developmental toxins, based partly on human studies carried out in the 1980s and 1990s.

That may stigmatize use of the materials and cut investment in the EV sector, lobby groups including Eurobat, the International Lithium Association and Eurometaux said in an open letter to politicians. EVs play a crucial role in green efforts and automakers such as Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. have warned that soaring materials prices and supply-chain bottlenecks threaten their rollout.

In the letter, the lobby groups raised concerns about the scientific rationale for the classification, which could lead to the chemicals being established as a “substance of very high concern” alongside severely carcinogenic and mutagenic toxins that the EU wants to gradually phase out by restricting usage.

That could undermine separate efforts to boost domestic production of lithium, which the commission designated as a critical raw material in 2020. The proposals refer to lithium carbonate, hydroxide and chloride.

“If the three lithium salts go down this path it could have significant unintended consequences in the EU, putting in question the long-term viability of lithium being produced, refined, used, and recycled” in the EU, International Lithium Association Secretary General Roland Chavasse said by email.

Categorizing the chemicals as reproductive and developmental toxins could impose higher costs on buyers and crimp producers’ margins, hindering the rationale for further investment in the industry, according to Francesco Gattiglio, director of external affairs for the EU at Albemarle Corp. The company is the world’s top lithium miner and operates a lithium chemicals plant in Langelsheim, Germany.

“While the impact to our specialty customers is unclear at this point, we do not anticipate closure of our Langelsheim plant,” Gattiglio said by email. “For sure, the classification would have a negative impact on the possibility to establish lithium conversion plants in Europe.”

Zenlabs Energy has received $3.5 million from the US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) to co-fund a two-year project focusing on electrolyte and active materials in silicon-dominant anode cells. Jet maker Lilium has licensed the technology to power its zero-emission aircraft expected in 2025.

The project at Zenlabs Energy in Fremont, California, is already underway with the new grant, including a 50-per-cent cost share. Research currently revolves around materials that form a stable passivation layer on both the anode and cathode surfaces. This is to address the remaining challenges associated with high-energy, high-power and low-cost silicon-dominant anode cells for EV applications, so Zenlabs.

For funding through USABC, it is the third time the subsidiary of the Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) has awarded money to Zenlabs.

“The low-cost/fast-charge contract award with Zenlabs is part of USABC’s broad battery technology research and development program,” said Steve Zimmer, executive director of USCAR. The Consortium operates by a cooperative agreement with the US Department of Energy (DOE).

Lilium is also no stranger to Zenlabs and has invested in the start-up in 2021. Engineers at the German e-jet maker believe the new technology will be able to power its Lilium eVTOL aircraft within a few years. As an investor, Lilium has exclusive rights to use the battery cell technology in its planned regional jet operations.

“Our team scouted more than 100 companies along the entire battery value chain from raw material suppliers through to cell developers, manufacturers, and recycling companies,” the company stated. “Based on that research, we concluded that Zenlabs’ pouch cells, lithium-ion batteries using high-silicon anode and high-nickel cathode, offered the best solution for achieving our needs through performance, certification, and into scale production.”

In its electric aircraft, Lilium aims for an operational range of around 175 kilometres (108 miles), assuming a short 10-second vertical take-off at its maximum take-off weight and a brief 45-second vertical landing.

The company says Zenlabs’ technology will be able to achieve this since it will deliver a high average specific power of 2,500 watts per kilogram during the short take-off and landing and around 250 watt hours per kilogram in cruise flight, leaving a 20% energy reserve after landing.

Porsche joint venture Customcells will manufacture Lilium’s battery cells using Zenlabs’ technology under license, asserting that its cells and battery modules will meet anticipated safety regulations from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Electric vehicles are new, fun, and evolving at a rapid pace. And while we’re seeing major improvements to charging speeds and mileage, there’s still a long way to go. One of the more exciting advancements is solid-state batteries, and you’ll be hearing a lot about them in the near future.

See, EVs of today get power from lithium-ion batteries, the same type of battery inside our smartphones, laptops, and tablets. There’s nothing wrong with that, but solid-state cells promise a better future.

With that in mind, here we’ll explain a bit about solid-state EV batteries and how they differ from the current lithium-ion cells in a Tesla or F-150 Lightning?

Solid-State vs. Lithium-Ion: What’s The Difference?

Lithium-ion batteries use a liquid electrolyte that allows the flow of energy between the cathode and anode side during charging and when a battery is in use. This liquid (or sometimes a gel) also stabilizes the surfaces, extends lifespan, and is an improvement over older battery technology.

The ions inside a battery switch from one side to the other during use and go back while charging, eventually wearing down over time. The electrolyte solution helps improve the process, slows degradation, and improves the lifespan.

However, current Lithium-ion batteries are flammable, have a limited voltage range, and start to lose performance over time. Similar to how your phone doesn’t hold a charge as well as it did when you first bought it. They’re also heavy and not very energy-dense.

Solid-state battery technology promises to fix most of those pain points. While a solid-state battery operates very similar to lithium-ion, they use a solid material instead of the liquids or gels in current products. That solid material can be anything from ceramics, polymers, or sulfites.

By removing the flammable liquid electrolyte, solid-state batteries have fewer moving parts and are more stable, compact, lightweight, and safe. They’re also expensive and hard to manufacture, which is why we’re not seeing them in vehicles already.

Solid-state batteries aren’t new and typically only used in small electric devices, like pacemakers and medical equipment, and most aren’t rechargeable. Could that be about to change?

With inflation driving gas prices to an all-time high, consumers are flocking to dealerships to get themselves an electric vehicle (EV).

The prices may not be as competitive as some of the vehicles running on an internal combustion engine, but it’s the great long-term investment many are striving to achieve while, of course, minimizing their carbon footprint.

But are these cars — which manufacturers boast are better for the environment — as green as they seem?

One of the biggest issues that come up when comparing the environmental impacts of EVs versus internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) is the battery.

Experts have weighed in on the controversial manufacturing surrounding EV batteries and while many huge automakers such as Chevrolet and Ford are starting to pump out EV models, consumers are still left to wonder: Do the environmental impacts outweigh the potential long-term benefits of moving towards an EV-dominated world?

Let’s look at some of the myths surrounding EV batteries.

Myth: EV batteries are just as bad for the environment as gas cars

There isn’t really a clear-cut true-or-false narrative when it comes to answering this question.

Most of the current battery chemistry relies on lithium and cobalt. Lithium is commonly mined out of the earth in huge pits or extracted by pumping a brine solution into a bore hole and evaporating the solution in sprawling above-ground ponds. Neither option is environmentally friendly.

Such lithium mining projects represent a challenge for environmentalists because they carry the promise of decarbonization in exchange for heavy impacts on ecosystems and local communities.

The big challenge is making sure lithium mines are located in places where they do the least amount of damage, said Lisa Belenky, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

“It really is very site specific as far as what impacts it would have to the local species, water,” Belenky said. “Almost every energy project we look at for climate change has its own greenhouse gas footprint.”

Cobalt is also an essential element in the rechargeable lithium batteries that fuel many electronic devices. The rise of smartphones in the past 20 years has created a large demand for the metal, and the growing popularity of electric cars is expected to further increase demand.

And just like with lithium or any mineral mining, cobalt is also not the most environmentally friendly. Mining creates waste that could potentially pollute local water supply, the air, the soil and the health of workers.

Regardless, the demand for the minerals remains. The World Bank estimates that the production of battery minerals, including graphite, nickel and cobalt, could increase by 500% by 2050.

But, like in any economy, when there is demand, there is innovation.

The ethical and environmental issues surrounding elements such as cobalt and lithium will be a thing of the past as the world moves towards a greener world, according to Eric Wachsman, professor at the University of Maryland and director of Maryland Energy Innovation Institute.

“Everybody agrees, that’s not the best,” Wachsman said of how the essential elements needed in an EV battery are acquired.

“So you might have heard there was a Nobel Prize in 2019, John Goodenough and Stan Woodingham and Akira (Yoshino), these are the guys who invented the lithium-ion battery. They were using lithium cobalt oxide. That was sort of the first cathode material that was known; it was invented by John Goodenough,” Wachsman explained. “That was in Sony Handycams, remember those things? And the first cell phones. Those are being replaced now by a nickel-manganese cobalt, so NMC — less cobalt. And they keep changing the chemistry to go less and less cobalt. And now the nickel is starting to become an issue not because of the mining issue, like cobalt, but just the availability.”

Wachsman pointed out several different battery chemistries that are being studied to open the door for more ethically-made and clean EV batteries to be mass-produced. But this isn’t like the field of dreams where if you make it, they will come.

There needs to be a demand for the product to justify investing time and money into figuring out better options for manufacturers.

Some of the types of battery chemistries being looked into are:

• Lithium-ion phosphate
• Lithium iron phosphate
• Lithium-sulfur

“There are other chemistries out there. Lithium-sulfur is one out there. Sulfur is sort of a byproduct of hydrocarbon processing. It’s basically something people almost give away to get rid of, so those chemistries are coming along and they’re going to replace the current cobalt and that will disappear as an issue,” Wachsman continued.

Myth: You can’t recycle EV batteries

Actually, you can, but again, there isn’t a huge market for recycling these types of batteries — yet.

“There is a second life for batteries. There’s not a second life for your gas engine. I mean, when it dies, it’s dead. It’s basically just a boat anchor, you’ve got to pay to have it disposed of someplace,” Wachsman explained.

He also noted that his home is powered by solar panels and, hypothetically, if he absolutely needed to, he could repurpose his electric vehicle battery to power his entire home.

A typical home with solar panels on the roof tends to have a 10-kW battery that powers them, according to Wachsman. “Your Tesla has a 100-kW battery in it, so it could power my entire house,” Wachsman posited.

There are several projects underway to make battery recycling more affordable, and it’s very likely that the company that pioneers the technology will reap huge rewards. In the event that lithium becomes scarce, that threshold for economic feasibility will also drop, according to The Associated Press.

Giant automakers such as Toyota and Ford have recently partnered with Redwood Materials Inc., a startup whose goal is to create an EV battery recycling system aimed at lowering the cost of electric vehicles overall and reducing the environmental impacts, according to Reuters.

Myth: Charging is a pain because there aren’t enough stations

Many long-range drivers agree, this is true right now. But as with anything that is mass-produced, if there is a demand, companies will make more.

With some of the world’s top automakers jumping on the EV bandwagon — Honda, Toyota, Cadillac, Ford, Chrysler, the list goes on — the U.S. Environment Protection Agency says charging stations will crop up and add to the already 45,000 existing charging stations in the U.S. today.

With the development of direct-current fast charging, many new EVs can replenish 200-plus miles of range in only 20 minutes. The hidden component to worry about is where that energy comes from. More than 60% of electricity in the U.S. is still generated using fossil fuels. But the share of renewable energy has doubled since the 1980s, and trends suggest that the pace will accelerate.

With the expected increase in EV sales, power consumption will understandably increase as well, straining an aging power grid. In energy-challenged California, that could spell disaster during summer months when rolling blackouts are already common. For now, it seems that solar on every roof may be the most viable solution, according to the car-buying experts at Edmunds.

Going green on the federal level

Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced the availability of $5 billion in federal money to states over five years under President Joe Biden’s infrastructure law, sketching out a vision of seamless climate-friendly car travel from coast to coast.

Under Transportation Department requirements, states must submit plans to the federal government and can begin construction by this fall if they focus first on highway routes, rather than neighborhoods and shopping centers, that can allow people to take their electric vehicles long distances.

Currently, electric vehicle owners charge their vehicles at home 80% of the time, making the need for EV charging stations at colleges, apartment building parking lots or even public streets less urgent. But that is likely to change as more people who don’t have a garage to house a charging station buy EVs.

Direct-current fast chargers, which can charge a car up to 80% of its battery capacity in 20 to 45 minutes, are quite expensive, costing $40,000 to $100,000, limiting the number that can be built, but they enable drivers to quickly get back on a road such as a highway.

Jessika Trancik, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies EV charging, called the administration’s approach a good first step. She said a successful strategy to spur wider EV use will require charging stations in a host of different locations, including faster charging along highways and slower charging near homes and workplaces.

Even with limited resources, she said, federal money could be distributed to accelerate private investment, with greater government incentives for areas that might otherwise be underserved by the private sector.

“It’s not about government going out and installing every one of these chargers themselves,” she said. “It’s also about nudging private sector investment.”