Lithium News

Some of the latest battery technologies may become obsolete before reaching the market because of the breakneck pace of advances in the industry, reported Bloomberg.

Investment into start-ups developing new types of batteries rose to more than $1.5 billion in the first half of the year, almost twice the level in 2017, according to data from Cleantech Group, according to the report. Carmakers Volkswagen AG, Hyundai Motor Co. and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi have all channeled funds into battery companies. The Japanese industry group New Energy & Industrial Technology Development Organization has announced that it will spend $90 million on researching solid-state devices with a group of universities and manufacturers.

Not every technology is likely to succeed. There are thousands of different systems being tested across the industry, involving both major manufacturing companies to startups and universities. Even the lithium-ion cells used in most electric cars and mobile phones have varying manufacturing processes, reported Bloomberg.

The competition is getting fiercer as carmakers electrify more of their models and energy-storage units become more prevalent in homes and businesses. Demand for battery capacity will rise to 1,784 gigawatt-hours by 2030 from about 100 gigawatt-hours currently, according to forecasts from BloombergNEF.

From battery-powered delivery trucks and rickshaws, to Formula E racing cars, electric vehicles are entering the mainstream. But will a lack of investment in charging infrastructure hold the market back?

In 2015 single mum Sushila Devi was struggling to make ends meet and didn’t even have the money to send her three kids to school.

However, thanks to low-cost electric vehicle technology, the 30-year-old from the state of Bihar, North East India found a solution.

With a loan from a local charity, she bought an e-rickshaw – a type of taxi powered by a three-wheeled electric scooter – and started carrying passengers in her hometown of Bodh Gaya.

The town, famed as the place Buddha is said to have obtained enlightenment, is popular with tourists and worshippers who make up most of her customers.

Now, she earns 10,000 to 12,000 rupees a month (£110-£135; $145-$175) and 20,000 rupees in peak season – enough to send her two oldest children to a nearby school, she says.

Shamsul Akhtar of Karuna-Shechen, the charity that provided the loan, says e-rickshaws could create thousands of new jobs for underprivileged women like Ms Devi, while encouraging environmentally friendly transport .

Firstly, they cost just 38,000 rupees to run per year – “about half as much as running an older petrol-powered rickshaw”, he says.

They’re also popular with regulators. Bodh Gaya now only allows e-rickshaws, not their more polluting cousins, within 5km of the town’s ornate temples.

Rapid growth

From rickshaws to buses, cars to delivery lorries, electric vehicles are going mainstream and not just in the richer developed nations.

“We’re about to cross four million electric vehicles on the road globally some time in August,” says Colin McKerracher, head of advanced transport at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Of course, that’s only a sliver of the total number of vehicles on the road, but it’s steeply up from just 500,000 in 2014.

He expects even more growth by the mid-2020s, when electric vehicles “will cost the same as ones powered by internal combustion engines”, posing a huge challenge to petrol vehicles.

In the meantime, government subsidies are helping to bring down the costs. For example, China – which accounts for half of global electric auto sales – has exempted electric vehicles from purchase taxes since 2014.

Better batteries

The batteries that power electric vehicles are also improving, says Erik Terjesen, senior strategy director at Massachusetts battery start-up Ionic Materials.

His is one of a number of firms working on building larger capacity batteries than today’s lithium ion ones. Using more lithium “much increases” battery capacity, he says, but it also makes batteries less stable posing a fire risk.

Instead, researchers like him are trying to replace this liquid electrolyte with solid materials such as silicon, to make safer “solid state” batteries that hold more charge.

BMW is one carmaker looking at the tech. It plans to release an electric vehicle with a silicon anode within five years, and says it will have a 30% larger range than current models.

Meanwhile, prices for a rechargeable lithium ion battery fell below $200 per kilowatt-hour this year for the first time, says Sarwant Singh, head of the transport team at consultancy Frost & Sullivan. That’s down from $750 in 2010.

“The forecast is they’ll fall below $100 in the next five years,” says Mr Singh. “[Then] they become really attractive, and below $80, you’re really killing the gasoline engine.”

Formula 1 performance?

In the range they permit, today’s electric car batteries are “much closer to what we know from a petrol engine”, says Nicolas Griebner, head of product at Mini UK.

“We’re not there yet, no question, but we are a lot closer than we used to be,” he says.

There is now an electric-powered car racing championship – Formula E – where 10 teams from around the world compete.

In its first four years, “drivers raced for 50 minutes, and halfway through the race had to get out of one car and jump into another,” says Formula E spokesman Sam Mallinson.

But new, bigger batteries mean from next season they won’t need to.

Formula 1 vehicles still travel at much faster speeds reaching 240mph. However, the next generation of Formula E cars could travel as fast as 186mph, say experts – up from about 140mph currently.

There are also new design possibilities with electric cars, because their engines take up less space, says Mark Preston, head of China’s Techeetah Formula E Team.

“[When designing] an electric car from scratch, you do the architecture differently than if you were basing your vehicle on an internal combustion car,” he says.

One Chinese electrical vehicle start-up, Nanjing-based Byton, is putting the finishing touches to a car with a 125cm (4.1ft) wide digital screen in front, which can be divided into different windows.

Byton spokesman Oliver Strohbach says the “very big” screen and better connectivity will let drivers hold digital meetings while they are stuck in road traffic, and have “something meaningful” to do while commuting.

Electric cars could soon be charged up in as much time as it takes to put fuel in a petrol car after scientists develop a new energy storage system.

A group of chemists from the University of Glasgow has developed a new ‘flow battery’ system which utilises nano-molecules to be able to store either electric power or hydrogen gas.

It will be based on the design of a nanoscale battery molecule and it will be able to release power on demand as either electric or hydrogen to power a car.

This breakthrough could see electric cars recharged in seconds and be flexible in situations that may require hydrogen fuel or electric power.

Nano-molecules could be contained in a pumpable liquid and could see the new liquid replace the old in seconds.

According to the report published in the journal Nature Chemistry, when a concentrated liquid contains nano-molecules, the amount of energy it can store increases by almost 10 times.

The method was designed by Professor Leroy Cronin, Dr Mark Symes, and Dr Jia Jia Chen and they believe that is could pave the way for electric cars in the future.

“For future renewables to be effective, high capacity and flexible energy storage systems are needed to smooth out the peaks and troughs in supply,” said Professor Leroy Cronin, the University of Glasgow’s Regius Chair of Chemistry.

“Our approach will provide a new route to do this electrochemically and could even have application in electric cars where batteries can still take hours to recharge and have limited capacity.

“Moreover, the very high energy density of our material could increase the range of electric cars, and also increase the resilience of energy storage systems to keep the lights on at times of peak demand.”

In July, the Government announced a massive improvement in electric charging infrastructure over the next few years.

The new law aims to improve infrastructure and confidence in electric vehicles to make sure all public charge points are compatible with all cars.

A new polymer that conducts ions at room temperature is showing promise as a battery material for electric cars, consumer electronics, and grid storage systems. The polymer, developed by engineers at Ionic Materials, Inc., could serve as a solid electrolyte—possibly one day acting as an alternative to the conventional liquid electrolytes used in virtually all of today’s lithium-ion batteries. “This will be the first viable solid-state solution for batteries,” Mike Zimmerman, founder and CEO of Ionic Materials, told Design News.

The new material, patented by the company, represents a departure from the status quo in solid-state battery development in that it is a polymer, or plastic, instead of the more common ceramic or glass material. “All of the solutions to date have been ceramics or glasses,” Zimmerman told us. “But they can be brittle and hard to scale up.”

The new material, patented by the company, represents a departure from the status quo in solid-state battery development in that it is a polymer, or plastic, instead of the more common ceramic or glass material. “All of the solutions to date have been ceramics or glasses,” Zimmerman told us. “But they can be brittle and hard to scale up.”

The key to Ionic’s effort is that its material scientists were able to develop a conduction mechanism that allows ions to transfer through the polymer at room temperature. “The most desirable way to incorporate a solid electrolyte into a battery is through the use of plastics,” Zimmerman added. “But it hasn’t been done before because there’s not been a polymer that could conduct ions at room temperature.”

Solid-state electrolytes have been a Holy Grail of sorts for the battery industry for years. Automakers and consumer electronics manufacturers want them because they are inherently safer than liquid electrolytes. They also offer the promise of higher energy density, lower cost, and faster recharge times.

Up to now, however, solid-state batteries have faced numerous challenges, including manufacturability issues. But Zimmerman said that his company’s new material is inherently better-suited to manufacturing than ceramics or glasses. “Because it’s a polymer, it can be scaled into high volume,” he told us. “It can fit into battery manufacturing very easily.”

Zimmerman also says his polymer material would eliminate the overheating and explosion problems notably seen in some lithium-ion batteries, while offering twice the energy density of those chemistries.

The technology is attracting interest from venture capitalists, automakers, energy companies, and even other battery manufacturers. Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi announced it is investing in Ionic Materials earlier this year, as did Hyundai Cradle, Hyundai Motors’ venture capital arm. Similarly, French-based energy giant Total has invested in the technology. And battery manufacturer A123 Systems is teaming with Ionic on batteries for plug-in vehicles.

Zimmerman said he expects the technology to begin ramping into production in about two to three years. One of the keys to that rapid deployment, he said, is its manufacturability. “It’s a solid and it can be extruded,” he told us. “You can make it using any plastics processing.”

Zimmerman will be on hand at the upcoming Battery Show to discuss the solid-state battery in a session titled, “Enabling Solid State Batteries Through Polymer Innovation.”

Daimler is expected to produce battery packs for plug-in electric cars at even more sites than previously announced.
According to Reuters, the company recently said that plants in Sindelfingen and in Untertuerkheim in Germany will get battery manufacturing capabilities too.

Several battery production sites suggest that Daimler is preparing for the gradual transition to plug-ins.

That’s comes on top of the:

• two plants in Kamenz, Germany
• plant in Beijing, China
• plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
• plant in Bangkok, Thailand
• NEW: Untertuerkheim, Germany
• NEW: Sindelfingen, Germany

It’s odd that in the case of Mercedes-Benz electric buses, the battery packs are made by the separate company AKASOL.

The automotive industry’s use of lithium-ion batteries is on track to grow seven-fold to 650 GWh by 2025, from 70 GWh in 2017; the increase in energy storage, although from a lower base, will add to this, says specialist international publisher Metal Bulletin.

It adds that the electrification of vehicles and the need to store electricity, generated by renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, point to huge demand growth for lithium-ion batteries.

Government subsidies and incentives in many countries – most notably China – are encouraging sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and e-buses.

For now, the cost of manufacturing EVs remains more expensive than a vehicle powered by a comparable petrol or diesel internal combustion engine (ICE), owing to the cost of the EV’s battery pack.

However, economies of scale are at work in bringing down battery costs; and as EV and ICE vehicle prices converge, the cheaper running cost of EVs is expected to make them the vehicle of choice.

Battery pack costs have fallen to around $200/kWh this year, from around $1 000/kWh in 2010, and may reach a battery cell cost of $100/kWh this year, with its battery pack costs expected to reach that level in 2020.

The $100/kWh price tag for a battery pack is thought to be the tipping point where EV and ICE costs are similar.

Metal Bulletin further expects many consumers to see EVs as a must-have status symbol well before prices converge. The publisher questions whether raw material supply will be able to respond in time.

“In most cases, the supply chain is coping with the rollout of EVs but the technology is at the start of the ‘S’-curve. The entire supply chain must work hard and in a coordinated way to feed this new supercharged era.

The supply response from raw material producers to processors, cathode and battery manufacturers and original-equipment manufacturers will be massive, with output needing to increase many times over in a short period to keep up with even the more conservative demand outlooks,” notes Metal Bulletin.

Given that it normally takes about seven to ten years to bring a new greenfield mine on line, the need for current production to double, triple or quadruple over that kind of timetable is a tall ask.

Luckily, supply responses are already under way and there is excess capacity in the system, albeit not all able to provide the right grade of material, so there is some leeway, but little room for complacency, states Metal Bulletin.

“Given the enormous task ahead, we expect partnerships will have to form to match the right type of supply to the particular demand. Good communication between downstream manufacturers and upstream producers will be essential to facilitate the battery evolution.”

In addition, Metal Bulletin forecasts that battery raw material prices will have to stay elevated to incentivise the massive investment needed to bring new supply on line in a timely manner.

Lithium and cobalt are currently seeing a supply response to the demand shock that came out of China late in 2015 and that was triggered when China’s thirteenth five-year plan targeted five-million EVs on the road in 2020 (which was later revised to two-million EVs). This sent battery and EV manufacturers scrambling to build additional capacity.

When spot demand for lithium and cobalt raced higher in China, prices climbed, which, in turn, has attracted more investment in production. Lithium spot prices, basis ex-works China, as assessed by Metal Bulletin, climbed to a high equivalent in dollar terms of $26.18/kg in December 2017 from around $8/kg in June 2015 and the benchmark cobalt price rallied to a high of $43.70/lb from $13.50/lb in June 2015.

Metal Bulletin forecasts a lithium surplus of around 7 000 t this year and around 29 000 t in 2019, and a cobalt surplus of about 4 000 t this year and 9 000 t in 2019.

“Given this supply response, we expect lithium and cobalt prices to decline, as indeed has been the case in recent months, with lithium carbonate prices, ex-works China, having dropped 34% in yuan terms to 115 500 yuan per tonne after peaking late in November last year at 175 000 yuan per tonne,” explains Metal Bulletin.