Lithium News

The energy storage sector has been growing robustly, despite some concerns about the global supply chain for one key material, lithium. Well, that question could soon be moot. The California-based startup Lilac Solutions has just received a major financial boost for an innovative, low-impact method for extracting lithium from abundant brines around the globe.

Diversifying the global supply chain could help alleviate one source of anxiety for US energy policymakers. Currently, the top lithium producers are concentrated in a relatively small number of countries overseas, and uncertainty over President* Trump’s trade policy has layered another layer of complexity onto an already fraught situation.

Energy Storage And Lithium

For those of you new to the topic, lithium-ion technology is the gold standard for energy storage today. A more diverse field of options is beginning to emerge, but for now lithium is powering everything from smart phones and electric vehicles, on up to utility-scale batteries for grid use.

Though the reserves are mostly concentrated in just a few countries, lithium is relatively abundant. The primary source is salt brine, and the conventional extraction process is based on evaporation.

Last week, Lilac Solutions was among three startups selected for investment by the non-profit organization PRIME Coalition, which focuses on a high tech approach to manage climate change.

The company’s new technology addresses a couple of key issues involved in conventional lithium extraction. Lilac describes the problem in a nutshell:

…The conventional process for extracting lithium from brines requires large evaporation ponds that are vulnerable to weather, large quantities of chemical inputs, and long periods of time for construction and processing. This conventional process also suffers from low lithium recovery and cannot access new lithium resources in the US and around the world…

Got all that? Lilac has developed a modular technology that can be scaled up (or down, presumably) in reaction to market trends.

The key to Lilac’s technology is ion exchange. Lilac has identified a group of high performance materials that can absorb and release lithium from brine quickly and in high concentration, while requiring less water than conventional methods.

In contrast to a months-long wait involve in conventional brine evaporation, the Lilac process takes a matter of hours.

Lilac also makes the point that its materials can function efficiently with brine sources that conventional extraction methods can’t access, due to the presence of calcium, magnesium and other interfering substances.

In addition, Lilac anticipates that its technology can be used on low-concentration brines that would otherwise be uneconomical to process.

US DOE Also Hearts Lilac

The PRIME investment follows a “highly competitive” award of $150,000 Lilac received from the US Department of Energy last year under its Small Business Research (SBIR) grant program.

Lithium actually has a variety of uses other than energy storage, but Lilac focused squarely on the battery angle (break added for readability) in its grant application:

Electric vehicles are creating unprecedented demand for lithium. Most lithium is produced from brine resources. Conventional methods for extracting lithium from brines suffer from low lithium recovery and cannot access the expanded resources needed for mass adoption of electric vehicles.

The Department of Energy has supported a great variety of projects related to battery R&D, manufacturing, and deployment, and many of these projects rely on a secure and sustainable supply of lithium.

Energy Storage And Environmental Impact

If Lilac’s technology is beginning to sound like a more environmentally friendly way to ramp up the energy storage supply chain, that’s no accident.

Founder David Snydacker was doing energy storage research as a PhD student at Northwestern University when he began focusing on ways to avoid the impacts of conventional lithium production.

Here’s Northwestern’s take on the project:

Lilac Solutions plans to pump brine directly from a brine reservoir into a tank filled with materials specialized for ion exchange. When the brine filters through the material, it releases lithium to be collected. The remaining salt waste will be drained directly back into the brine reservoir. This streamlined process bypasses the need for the brine to be transported to evaporation ponds and eliminates the toxic salt piles that result from the conventional process.

Northwestern also notes that the Lilac process could be powered by electricity generated on site.

What About Free Trade?

CleanTechnica is checking in with Lilac to explore that on-site electricity angle and see if the company is ready to pinpoint likely areas of application, so stay tuned for more on that.

In the meantime, the global lithium picture is about as complicated as it can get.

Only a handful of countries currently account for the majority of global lithium production, and some analysts are concerned that a supply bottleneck will curb the growth of the electric vehicle market. Others are predicting a lithium glut, so who knows?

The US has major lithium deposits but it has been slow to develop them. That could change pretty soon. One major lithium operation has already been linked to Tesla’s EV factory in Nevada, and the same state could host another big lithium outfit by 2022 if all goes well.

As for the global supply, some of the President’s policy chips are falling on the side of energy storage. For example, Australia and Argentina are among the world’s top lithium producers, and they were also among the handful of countries exempted from Trump’s new steel and aluminum tariffs last spring.

The picture is not as reassuring when it comes to Canada, where the President’s trade tough talk has reached explosive proportions. Canada is not currently listed among the world’s top lithium producers, but it does have strong reserves that mining companies are on the verge of tapping. That should become a major advantage for the US energy storage supply chain — or not, if Canada decides to ship its lithium elsewhere.

It’s also worth noting that several Canada-based mining companies have lithium interests in the US and Chile, which is another top lithium producing country.

China also has a heavy hand in the global lithium market, and China based companies have been gobbling up lithium resources in Argentina.

Rounding out the geopolitical picture is the new Asia-Pacific trade deal signed by 11 nations last spring. The roster includes Australia, Canada and Chile.

Conspicuously absent from the trade deal was the USA. Trump pulled his country out of negotiations last year, so go figure.

Graphenea, in collaboration with industrial and academic partners (Infineon Technologies, WITec, RWTH Aachen University and Simune Atomistics), announced the successful completion of project NanoGraM that focused on nano/microelectromechanical (NEMS/MEMS) devices based on graphene. The project focused on three specific device concepts for potential future products: graphene microphones, graphene-membrane pressure sensors and graphene-membrane Hall sensors.

Audio spectrum, which offers novel functionality. For pressure and Hall sensors the expected benefits of using graphene include increased sensitivity (up to a factor of 100), robustness (up to a factor of 5), enhanced signal-to-noise ratios and the avoidance of hazardous materials in processing. The integration of graphene NEMS/MEMS sensors with silicon technology will enable smart systems that enhance the well being of people, food quality, traffic safety, pollution monitoring or homeland security. The research activities that took place as part of NanoGraM enabled a decisive technology lead for the industrial NEMS manufacturer and the participating SMEs.

Graphenea acted as a graphene provider and assisted the project goals by developing a semi-dry transfer process for suspended CVD monolayer and multilayer graphene on cavities and holes. Graphene was successfully suspended over holes up to 500 micrometers in diameter. This line of research enabled the introduction of a new product for Graphenea: suspended monolayer graphene on cavities.

The project delivered three patent applications and at least seven scientific publications, with more in the pipeline. Apart from fabrication, characterization of large area graphene membranes was also taken to new heights, as detailed in the joint publication “Noninvasive Scanning Raman Spectroscopy and Tomography for Graphene Membrane Characterization”.

The project was jointly funded by Germany (BMBF) and Spain Basque Country as part of M-ERA.NET. It lasted 3 years and was worth in total € 1,960,244.

China’s electric vehicle market has seen great growth in a short period of time and will continue to grow rapidly despite Beijing’s shifting subsidies, according to one expert.

In 2014 there were only 50,000 electric vehicles sold, but in 2018 that number has increased 10 times. Each of the next few years will see the sector’s market share grow by 40 percent, Jacob George, vice president and general manager of Asia Pacific at U.S.-based global marketing information services company J.D. Power, told CNBC last week.

He predicted that there will be continued growth in the new energy vehicle sector and new companies are likely to arise.

While, China may not meet some of its more ambitious targets pertaining to the electric vehicle sector, its policies and measures are sound, he added.

Some of those goals include plans for total annual sales of 2 million electric and gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles by 2020 and for manufacturers to at least have one electronic vehicle produced by 2019.

Noting that 2020 “is just around the corner,” George said he didn’t expect the country to be purely relying on electric vehicles by then.

“But is this the right strategy for the future? Absolutely. We do see this as a fundamental requirement so that each manufacturer at least has one electric vehicle, ” he added.

For foreign automakers to thrive in China’s electric vehicle sector, it is important for them to work with other Chinese battery manufacturers closely and adapt their existing technology to suit China’s focus on longer-range vehicles, George said.

His warning follows after the Wall Street Journal recently reported that General Motors’ plans to ramp up electric vehicle production in China saw a set back after the automaker found the Chinese-made batteries it intended to use failed to meet its own performance and safety standards during testing.

The term bioelectronics, or bionics for short, describes a research field that is concerned with the integration of biological components with electronics; specifically, the application of biological materials and processes in electronics, and the use of electronic devices in living systems.

One day, bionics research could result in neural prostheses that augment or restore damaged or lost functions of the nervous system – restore vision, healing spinal cord injuries, and ameliorate neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s.

Bioelectronics has benefitted greatly from the miniaturization offered by nanotechnology materials such as carbon nanotubes graphene (see for instance our previous Nanowerk Spotlights Eavesdropping on cells with graphene transistors or Nanotechnology to repair the brain.

Graphene bioelectronics has become a ground-breaking field that offers exciting opportunities for developing new kinds of sensors capable of establishing outstanding interfaces with soft tissue (see for instance: Light-driven bioelectronic implants without batteries). Graphene-based transistors, as well as electrode arrays, have emerged as a special group of biosensors with their own peculiarities, advantages and drawbacks.

Reviewing the progress of the field from single device measurements to in vivo neuroprosthetic devices, researchers from the Institute of Bioelectronics at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany, have published a review paper about graphene bioelectronics in 2D Materials (“Graphene & two-dimensional devices for bioelectronics and neuroprosthetics”).

The authors, Dmitry Kireev and Prof. Andreas Offenhaeusser, present a comprehensive overview of the use of graphene for bioelectronics applications; specifically they focus on interfacing graphene-based devices with electrogenic cells, such as cardiac and neuronal cells.

“Graphene possesses a number of important properties that may make it a game changer for future bioelectronics,” Kireev, the review’s first author, tells Nanowerk. “Above all and important for neuroscience, it was found to be biocompatible and completely stable in liquids and electrolytes. Excellent conductivity as well as transistor amplification properties allow graphene to be used for active parts of biosensors with extremely large sensitivities.”
In their review, the authors focus on a special kind of device that utilizes graphene as its active sensor material for extracellular signal detection. Starting with a short explanation of graphene-based devices, they then discuss in detail the reasons for the importance of graphene for future bioelectronics.

The paper provides a detailed description the working principle of two main graphene-based electronic devices that are currently used in bioelectronics applications: graphene field effect transistors (GFETs) and graphene multielectrode arrays (GMEAs). The authors discuss in detail the advantages and drawbacks of these devices.
The authors in-depth discussion includes past developments in order to provide a profound understanding of fundamental problems that have already been solved in order to guide future research.
Useful for researchers in the field, the paper provides a detailed time line of the development of GFETs and GMEAs, complete with key benchmarking properties.

The authors end their review with a structured perspective on future developments expected in the field.
“Basic research on graphene’s properties and proof-of-concept applications/devices is now concluding or at least declining,” notes Kireev. “We believe that research is now in the phase of optimizing these devices and searching for novel designs and approaches to utilize the given advantages of graphene and at the same time neutralize its drawbacks.”

The authors believe that the most intriguing outcome of the discovery of graphene has been the formation of a new research field: 2D materials science. Surprisingly, it appears that a myriad of standard bulk materials, such as silicon, germanium, and MoS2, whose properties have been known and studied for a long time, change their properties dramatically when thinned down to one or several monolayers. Some materials become semiconducting, some become fluorescent, and others become superconducting or create specific surface bonds. Other materials, such as 2D Ti3C2-MXenes, are suddenly sensitive to neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, creating an ultimately interesting device for neuroelectronics.

“The example of graphene and its usage for bioelectronics, which is exceptionally interesting, paves the way for further original research and exploration yet to come, possibly utilizing other 2D materials or graphene in standard forms (GFETs & GMEAs) or in the form of completely new devices,” Kireev concludes.

General Motors has developed a relationship with EV charger builders Delta Americas to build Extreme Fast Charger stations with the capability to add 180 miles of range in just 10 minutes. Delta Americas has said they’ll have a final prototype of the XFC station ready by 2020, just in time for GM to finalize its full lineup of electric vehicles, 20 different nameplates, ready by 2023.

Adding 18 miles of range per minute of charge dramatically outstrips Tesla’s Supercharger—which currently produces about six miles of range per minute—as well as Porsche’s upcoming 350kW system, which promises 12.4 miles per minute.

GM’s plan, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, is to use solid-state transformers to deliver 400kW of electricity directly to vehicles with an as-yet-unheard-of 96.5 percent efficiency rate from the grid to the car. Reaching higher levels of efficiency will be important as electric cars become a more mainstream and popular choice, both in terms of consumer friendliness and in the tax such a charger would place on the nation’s power grid.

“We’re thrilled to lead such an important project and have a stellar team of researchers and partners in place that are more than ready to take on the challenge of setting a new standard for EV fast charging,” President of Delta Americas, M.S. Huang, told The Drive. “By utilizing solid-state transformer technology, we have the opportunity to create unprecedented charging speed and convenience that will ultimately help support the DOE’s strategic goal of increasing EV adoption across the nation.”

This level of extremely short battery top ups is necessary for the electric car to catch on in appreciable numbers in America. As many people desire the ability to travel long distances without major inconvenience, range anxiety becomes a problem. If the infrastructure can be instituted, and developed to charge a car in similar times to filling up a tank of gasoline, then it can be seen as a viable option.

Further, as many of the people who would benefit most from an electric vehicle live in congested cities, without reliable access to overnight charging thanks to a lack of garage space, charging via an Extreme Fast Charger station would make EVs an option for them.

There is an arms race in the EV market right now, and it’s perhaps the most exciting thing happening in the world of cars. The first company that can make electric conveyance an option for city dwellers will win big.

For car shoppers who are interested in trying out electric-vehicle technology but who don’t have Tesla money to spend, now is a great time to buy an emissions-free car for less than $15,000.

There are 3-year-old Nissan Leaf EVs to be had for a little more than $10,000, compared with the $30,000 to $36,000 sticker prices when new, according to Cars.com listings.

Shoppers could spend a little more and pick up a nice used Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid. Even luxury green cars like the BMW i3 and Cadillac ELR are available for a fraction of their original prices, experts tell CR.

“What you have is a glut of inventory in a low-demand environment,” says Eric Lyman, chief analyst at TrueCar. “That’s why we’ve got really low values on these vehicles.”

Electric cars provide quiet, energy-efficient transportation and, often, some of the latest safety technology. They lower greenhouse-gas emissions and reduce the national dependence on petroleum. Plus, operating costs for electrified cars are lower than for their gasoline counterparts. And with fewer moving parts, EVs can be more reliable and longer-lasting than their gasoline-powered counterparts.

The downside is practicality. The cheapest used EVs are also the ones with the shortest range, meaning this would probably be a second car for errands around town rather than a long-distance cruiser. EV owners also need to invest in some home charging infrastructure, which isn’t practical for apartment-dwelling urbanites.

None of the first-generation EVs hitting the used-car lots in big numbers earned a CR recommendation. But we found things to like about every model out there. We liked the Leaf’s reliability and comfort. We found the BMW i3, Chevy Volt, and Volkswagen eGolf fun to drive.

Among newer electric and plug-in hybrid models, CR has recommended the Leaf, the Chevy Bolt, the Honda Clarity, and Tesla’s Model S and Model 3.

Check out our buying guide to EVs and hybrids as well our vehicle ratings.

A note about Tesla: Like a lot of other things about the brand, its models aren’t behaving like the rest of the market. They are holding their value better than most of the electric cars discussed in this article, so there are fewer bargains for used-car shoppers.

A used 2015 Leaf may fetch around $10,475 at auction now, compared with the average nonluxury 3-year-old car price of $15,262, according to Manheim Auto Auction data.

A 2016 BMW i3 base model goes for $17,400 ($43,395 new). The website Jalopnik recently pointed out that there are formerly $75,000 Cadillac ELRs to be had for $25,000.

At Manheim, the nation’s largest wholesale market, consumers can expect to pay 10 percent to 25 percent above the wholesale price (what dealers pay for a used vehicle), according to Consumer Reports automotive analyst Mel Yu.

It’s the flipside to a few years of low gas prices and consumers embracing trucks and SUVs. There’s more supply than there is demand for EVs, especially models, such as the Leaf, that were often offered to consumers through cheap leases that baked in the available federal tax credits.

Vehicles such as the Leaf are showing up in large numbers at Manheim, says Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive. There are likely to be three times as many Leafs as other models to show up at auction, he says—leading to lower resale values.

“In general, it’s been a perfect storm of high incentives and tax credits, separating what people really paid (for a car) vs. the sticker,” Smoke says.

With an EV, shoppers will certainly save money on gas, but charging their new EVs will cost them money, whether through higher electric bills or at public charging stations such as Chargepoints. Overall, though, they’ll pay an average cost per mile of only around 3.5 cents. That’s just over $1 for 30 miles; if a comparable car gets 30 mpg, the gallon of gas it would take to go that far would cost about $3.)

“Buying a recent model-year EV could be a cost-effective way to get a car with advanced safety features,” says Jake Fisher, director of automotive testing at Consumer Reports.

It could be a great choice for a teenager commuting to high school, he says. “For many teens, the combination of short trips to school and work mean that they’ll rarely draw the battery too far down, and they’d likely appreciate the big savings on gas.”

Electric cars aren’t for everyone, especially first-generation EVs, such as the original Leaf, says TrueCar’s Lyman. New Leafs have a range of 160 miles, but older ones had an official range of 86 miles, and battery degradation might mean a real range of 60 miles between charges. If that short range is a deal-breaker, a plug-in might be the better choice. Or spend more for one of the newer EVs, like the 2017 Chevy Bolt, that can go as far as 250 miles between charges.

And a first-time EV buyer should factor in the costs of adding a home charger, especially for a model with a short range. A so-called Level 2 charger, which uses 240-volt power to decrease charging time, will cost around $350 to $700. Hiring an electrician to complete the installation may range from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000 if there are complications, such as the need to upgrade your home electrical system.

“This would be a second car that you use for running errands around town,” Lyman says.

Consumer Reports found the 2015 Leaf to have a quiet, comfortable ride similar to that of a larger, more luxurious sedan. In addition to the low operating costs—paying for electricity rather than gasoline—its reliability has been better than average, owners told us through our Annual Autos Survey. It’s not all good, though—the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has given the Leaf a Poor rating on its driver-side offset crash test, leading CR to withdraw its recommendation.

The Leaf isn’t the only good deal around. The 2014 BMW i3 sold new for more than $50,000 before incentives. You might be able to find a low-mileage 2014 version for less than $15,000, according to listings on Cars.com. The Ford Focus Electric and Volkswagen eGolf are fun-to-drive models selling for bargain prices.

Other good options include a plug-in hybrid, such as the Chevrolet Volt or the Ford Fusion Energi. Plug-in hybrids travel a shorter distance on electricity alone, but they’re supplemented by a small gasoline-powered engine. That means their drivers won’t be stuck on the road when the batteries are out of juice; they can top off at the nearest gas station.