Lithium News

Back in the early days of the automobile, racetracks were proving grounds for newfangled inventions like shock absorbers, disc brakes and seatbelts.

Something similar is happening at the dawn of what may be the age of battery-powered transportation. It was on vivid display in Zurich last month, as the silence of a warm summer Sunday was broken by a high-pitched sound reminiscent of the rebel fighters attacking the Death Star.

The whine came from battery-powered racecars running laps on a course laid out on the streets of Zurich — the first urban circuit race in Switzerland in more than half a century. On June 10, the normally staid Swiss banking city hosted the Formula E series, which will culminate in Brooklyn on July 14 and 15.

Formula E, the electrified cousin of Formula One, is first and foremost about marketing, a 140-mile-an-hour riposte to those who think battery-powered cars are part of a conspiracy by tree-huggers to take the fun out of driving.

But the racing series, which has attracted support from major automakers like Renault, Volkswagen’s Audi division, Mahindra of India and Citroën, is also the place to test out new ways of addressing the unique challenges of battery-powered transportation: range, charging technology and management of the performance-sapping heat that bedevils electric cars.

Formula One, for all its immense popularity, no longer produces many innovations that are useful in mass-market vehicles, said Sébastien Buemi, a driver for the Formula E team sponsored by Renault.

“The good thing with Formula E is that you can develop many things that you will be able to transfer to road cars,” said Mr. Buemi, who has also driven in Formula One.

For example, he said in a telephone interview, the powertrain in the Renault Zoe, a compact vehicle with a maximum range of about 150 miles per charge, is based on a Formula E design. “A Formula One engine is impossible to put in a road car,” he said.

During a pre-race stroll though the pit area in Zurich, it was obvious that managing the heat generated by high-voltage electric car batteries is arguably a more vexing problem than range or charging time.

ABB, the electrical and industrial equipment manufacturer based in Zurich that is Formula E’s lead sponsor, has demonstrated technology that needs just eight minutes to zap enough power into a battery for about 120 miles of driving. But a recharging station with six of these high-voltage chargers would put enough strain on the electricity grid to cause a blackout and melt ordinary power cables, said Ulrich Spiesshofer, ABB’s chief executive.

ABB, which is supplying recharging equipment for Formula E and has ambitions to be the global leader in charging stations for electric cars, sees the series partly as a way to generate public support for infrastructure investments.

“When you have a racecar that accelerates and brakes all the time in a very extreme way, in humid conditions, in cold conditions, in wet conditions, in dry conditions, it’s a great opportunity” to test new technology, Mr. Spiesshofer said.

The heat was a particular problem here, where the race-day weather was sunny and hot enough to attract crowds of bathers to the shores of Lake Zurich, a stone’s throw from the course.

The problem, it must be said, is not quite solved in a way that would make sense for everyday driving. Shortly before the race began in the late afternoon, pit crews shoveled nuggets of dry ice directly into the air intakes of the racecars to keep batteries cool. Some teams employed a decidedly low-tech cooling method: shielding their battery and motor compartments with ordinary umbrellas.

Formula E teams and their auto industry sponsors can gain a competitive advantage if they can work out a better solution than rivals to such problems. And those advantages could translate from the track to the sales floor.

BMW, which will compete as a manufacturer next season, assigned the same engineering team that works on the company’s i Series battery-powered vehicles to design technology for Formula E.

“The experience they have will have an influence on what they do next in production,” said Jens Marquardt, BMW’s director of motor sport.

The BMW team developed a motor for next season that is half the weight and a third the size of previous generations, while delivering twice the performance, Mr. Marquardt said.

The motor would be too expensive for mass-market cars, he said, but some of the know-how that went into it — which Mr. Marquardt declined to describe, for competitive reasons — is transferable, he said.

“What is happening in Formula E is exactly like the early days of motor sport,” he said.

One area where teams compete intensely is in systems that recapture energy from braking and feed it back to the battery. All the Formula E teams use the same battery and deploy two cars during the race, switching to the second when the first runs low on juice.

The car switch boldly underscores the biggest complaints about electric vehicles: limited range and slow charging. But the technology is improving quickly. Next season, the Formula E cars will get new, more efficient batteries that will last the entirety of the roughly 60-mile races, which take about an hour to complete.

Still, making the most of the finite store of electrons will remain crucial to Formula E tactics. The more cleverly that teams can contrive combinations of software and mechanics to recover energy when the cars slow for curves, the more power they can unleash on straightaways.

“The race is all about energy saving,” Paul Fickers, engineering director for the team sponsored by NIO, a Chinese electric car start-up, said on the sideline of the pit area. “You learn a lot about magnetic fields.”

The driver who best mastered the Zurich course was Lucas di Grassi of the Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler team. But the Brooklyn event, a doubleheader that will determine the season championship, will be a contest between Sam Bird of DS Virgin Racing, who was second in Zurich, and Jean-Éric Vergne of the Chinese Techeetah team, the driver with the most points this season. Mr. Bird is the only driver with a chance of picking up enough points in Brooklyn to surpass Mr. Vergne.

The Zurich event was the first legal car race on Swiss streets since 1954. Switzerland banned urban racing after a horrific accident in 1955 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. A Mercedes-Benz ricocheted off the track and into a spectator area, killing more than 80 people, the worst disaster in racing history.

But Formula E’s green credentials helped persuade Swiss officials to lift the racing ban. Though Formula E cars aren’t exactly quiet, they produce much less noise than the gasoline-powered Formula One cars, and the electric cars are emissions free — although some Zurich residents pointed out that the vehicles involved in building the race venue generated plenty of noise and pollution.

As European cities increasingly restrict traffic in an attempt to cut alarming levels of air pollution, Formula E demonstrates what may be the auto industry’s best hope for remaining welcome in urban areas.

“A lot of cities told us there is no way we would do a race with internal combustion cars,” said Benoit Dupont, head of sporting for Formula E. “What we can do,” he said, “we can do because we are electric.”

When Nissan released the next-generation last year, many were disappointed that it didn’t feature the long-anticipated bigger 60 kWh battery pack and quicker fast-charging technology.

Over the last few months, we learned that the updated powertrain is actually coming with the 2019 version of the Leaf.

Now we see the upcoming new electric vehicle leaked in a new fast-charging test by a charging station manufacturer.

The biggest change with the next-gen Leaf ended up being the new design.

In terms of powertrain, Nissan introduced a new bigger 40 kWh pack, but it still featured the old architecture without active temperature management.

Information that leaked from a Nissan presentation earlier this year showed that the Japanese automaker was holding the powertrain update for the 2019 version.

Based on the report, the new version of the vehicle would feature a 60 kWh battery pack as expected, but also a new 160 kW electric motor, 11 to 22 kW onboard charger, and a fast-charging capacity of ~100 kW or about twice as powerful as the current version.

Those details are still unconfirmed, but it appears to be solid.

Now Swiss electric car charging station maker EVTEC confirms some of those details as it releases on Twitter images of them testing their fast-charger with what they claim is a “new generation [Leaf] with the 60 kWh battery”:

EVTEC claims that its test was “succesful” and the images show the new Leaf charging at 102 kW.

Fast-charging has been controversial with the latest versions of the Leaf as Nissan has been limiting the charging capacity with repeated charge cycles, which created a controversy since it often results in the Leaf not charging as advertised.

The automaker claims that it is in order to limit battery degradation.

A new battery pack with the new 2019 version is expected to fix the problem and allow a higher charge rate.

Nissan is reportedly changing battery cells from AESC, Nissan’s own battery company which they sold this summer, to LG Chem.

The new battery pack is also reportedly equipped with a thermal management system, which would be a big step up for Nissan.

EVTEC’s pictures are encouraging showing a 102 kWh charge rate on its CHAdeMO charging station while the battery pack’s charge status is at 32%.

From the salt flats of the Atacama Desert in Chile to the savannas of the Congo, the makers and users of the world’s batteries are scrambling to secure the vital raw materials needed to produce the lithium-ion cells that will power electric vehicles around the globe. But no battery-makers are more aggressive than those from China, which is working to lock down the entire supply chain for its companies. Meanwhile, the United States will rely on economies of scale to compete in storage-cell manufacturing, turning toward North American raw material producers to ensure supplies whenever possible. Even then, the country will face stiff competition from Chinese investors — to say nothing of European automobile companies, who will be compelled to increase their reliance on China. Buoyed by support from the highest levels of government, Chinese companies are likely to find few challengers over the next decade and a half as they come to dominate the global supply of lithium-ion batteries.

China’s Power Play

Beijing is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to get control of the lithium-ion battery supply chain, because those storage cells will power the electric vehicles that are a critical component of the country’s national strategy to improve the environment and develop new technologies domestically. Much like the Belt and Road Initiative, the undertaking focuses on production and distribution. Because the demand for the batteries is expected to rise rapidly along with the demand for electric vehicles, storage-cell manufacturers and automakers are trying to get a lock on the necessary raw materials.

Accordingly, China and its companies have been busy abroad in recent months. Tianqi Lithium Corp. purchased a large share of Chilean lithium giant SQM in May, and 35 companies active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo established the Union of Mining Companies With Chinese Capital on June 18. The grouping includes China Molybdenum Co. and was formed to facilitate relationships between Beijing and Kinshasa at a time when the latter’s new mining codes and political uncertainty are giving Western producers cause for concern. Besides securing raw materials, China is also increasing its manufacturing capacity. Carmaker BYD Auto Co. recently opened a new battery manufacturing facility; when it reaches full capacity, it will be the world’s largest. But the company that best exhibits this expansionary strategy is Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL), which is planning to boost capacity by 24 gigawatt-hours per year (roughly 20 percent of current global manufacturing capacity) by 2020, as it tries to become the world’s biggest battery producer. Chinese companies already control roughly 60 percent of the world’s lithium-ion-battery manufacturing capacity — up from about 50 percent in 2013 — and are set to control a majority of future capacity as well.

But this type of battery won’t dominate the market forever. Growing demand and the search for cheaper and more accessible sources will drive research and development into new technologies. It is here that China’s stranglehold on the market could weaken. The use of cobalt is a likely starting point. Other battery manufacturers, including Tesla Inc., are already responding to the market uncertainty for the metal and Beijing’s position of strength by working to reduce or eliminate cobalt from battery chemistries. Moreover, Toyota is well-positioned in research and development to pioneer solid-state batteries that would require a new supply chains. But Chinese innovations have been growing in recent years, as have the indigenous capabilities of its battery producers, and the increasing number of patents across numerous sectors is just one illustration of this growing innovation potential. Thanks to a comfortable control of the supply chain, Chinese companies will not face the same drive as other world leaders will to accelerate the development of new technology, but they will still strive to avoid falling behind. Ultimately, even if the United States, Japan or South Korea attempt to exploit a shift in primary battery type to regain significant market shares from China, the latter will move quickly to close the gap.

In Elon’s World

The United States still has the potential to compete with China in the lithium-ion battery market, even if its global market share declines. Although the electric vehicle market will struggle in the United States because of the lower emissions standards implemented by the current U.S. administration, some large states will mitigate this sales drop. California recently announced its support for an extensive expansion of charging infrastructure over the next several years. Meanwhile, Tesla, in partnership with Japan’s Panasonic Corp., has been the flag-bearer for U.S. battery manufacturing. The company has experienced some setbacks lately, but its battery-manufacturing capacity is expected to expand over the next several years. Traditional battery powerhouses such as South Korea and Japan will also find opportunities in the United States to benefit from the expertise and excess cell capacity through partnerships.

And in an effort to ensure their own supplies, North American battery producers will look to their own continent for raw materials. Indeed, Tesla owner Elon Musk stated in 2014 that his company will work to find sources in North America as much as possible. The current trade and political environments may push others to work toward a similar goal. The relevant mining operations in the western United States and Canada (exploration is ongoing in Canada, while lithium reserves in Nevada also show potential) are still in their nascent stages, but such facilities could eventually provide a degree of raw material security to North American producers.

But even then, U.S. producers and consumers will not succeed in breaking free of China’s influence on battery supplies and sales, because its investment and involvement in the North American electric vehicle supply chain will continue. For example, A123 Systems Co., a battery manufacturer whose majority owner is Chinese, already supplies batteries to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Ultimately, U.S. auto manufacturers will retain their focus on the Chinese market, because much of the global electric vehicle expansion is occurring there — and will continue to do so thanks to the government’s placing a priority on such automobiles. In 2017 alone, the country added more than 500,000 electric vehicles. South Korea previously attempted to penetrate the market, when LG Electronics Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. sought to become the battery suppliers for Chinese-built electric vehicles. The South Korean giants, however, failed to receive approval, possibly because of Beijing’s retaliatory measures against Seoul for its decision to install the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system. Regardless of political motivations, China is likely to remain selective about which competitors it allows in, even if it reduces some barriers to the market. For U.S., Japanese, and South Korean battery-makers, the Chinese electric vehicle battery market is simply too large to ignore, but success will likely come only in markets where there is significant resistance to Chinese investment.

Leaving Europe Behind

As a whole, the European Union remains far behind its economic counterparts in establishing battery manufacturing capacity. Despite boasting some of the world’s biggest incentives for electric vehicles (a number of bloc members have called for the elimination of internal combustion engines by the century’s midpoint), the batteries to support this movement will likely be made elsewhere. Because China’s national strategy seeks to spread influence beyond its borders, battery manufacturing may soon play a role. CATL, which has been critical in securing raw materials for batteries for carmakers, including Germany’s BMW Group, will strive to increase its influence on the Continent. Already, CATL has announced deals to construct new facilities in Germany, though similar plants may face pushback in the future.

Some countries, especially Germany, have resisted Chinese involvement in sectors that are deemed to be critical to national strategy. German concern has grown after China’s Midea Group acquired German robotics company KUKA in 2016 and Chinese automotive manufacturer Geely purchased a 10 percent stake in Daimler AG in 2018. Germany remains protective of its technology and automotive sectors.

And given the pivotal role that vehicles, renewables and their power storage play in the future energy strategies of Germany and the Continent, China is likely to see additional resistance if its involvement becomes too ubiquitous — a development that would open the door for others. Accordingly, South Korea and Japan will continue to partner with U.S. companies to strengthen themselves in markets such as Europe (as well as Australia) where domestic battery manufacturing capacity cannot meet domestic demand. Ultimately, if Chinese domination of the Continental market becomes too strong, Europe may have little option but to continue to work with Beijing.

As long as lithium-ion batteries make the world’s latest technologies go round, China is poised to dominate the global battery market. However, this type of battery is unlikely to reign forever. Just as lithium-ion supplanted its predecessors, new technologies are likely to emerge and penetrate markets in the next 15 years, requiring a restructuring of facilities and supply chains. Once these technologies — such as lithium-sulfur batteries and eventually sodium and magnesium batteries — mature, the world will be better-positioned to regain some of the ground it is presently losing to China. But Beijing is boosting its research capabilities and continuing to emphasize the development of energy storage and related technology, so the Far Eastern giant won’t go down without a fight.

French miner Eramet SA is looking to acquire lithium deposits in Chile, Argentina and Brazil to expand its portfolio into the minerals used in batteries for electric vehicles, its CEO said on Thursday.

“Our priority is to develop our existing lithium deposit in Argentina. But we are also looking for other deposits in Chile, Argentina and Brazil,” Eramet CEO Christel Bories told a news conference in Tokyo.

The company said earlier this year that it was looking to expand in minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel salts linked to energy transition markets like electric vehicles.

Eramet plans to make an investment decision in its lithium development project in Argentina in the first half of 2019 with an estimated investment of about €400-million, Bories said.

“If we make a decision in the beginning of next year, we’ll start spending then till the end of 2022,” she said, adding that the company can “easily finance from its own cash”.

Eramet is also looking for potential targets in cobalt deposits, she said. Like lithium, cobalt is a key ingredient in batteries for electric cars.

“It’s not easy to find new cobalt deposits that are cost competitive compared to those in Democratic Republic of Congo. But we are looking for it,” she said, adding that Eramet is in talks with many junior companies around the world.

“A lots of discussions are going on,” she said.

The French company is also eyeing the battery recycling business including developing a way to recover lithium from batteries which is not currently available, she said.

Combining molten metal electrodes with a solid electrolyte may offer a cheap, scalable alternative to Li-ion batteries

A new liquid metal electrode (LME) battery made with a solid electrolyte and molten electrodes has been developed by researchers working on rechargeable batteries.

Rather than a graphite electrode with lithium metal ions moving in and out, as in lithium-ion batteries, LMEs comprise liquid metal, and can boost the energy density of a cell by around 50%. They are comparatively inexpensive and have a long lifespan.

But most LME batteries use molten salts as the electrolyte between the two electrodes, requiring a high operating temperature of 450°C. This presents stability challenges. Now, a team led by Yi Cui at Stanford University in the US have developed a solid electrolyte with a garnet-like structure, comprising a framework of lanthanum oxide and zirconium oxide that allows lithium ions to quickly zip through.

One advantage of this LLZTO (Li6.4 La3 Zr1.4 Ta 0.6 O12) solid electrolyte tube is that it allowed the prototype battery to operate at 240°C, a much lower temperature than previous iterations. The solid electrolyte is wrapped around a liquid lithium metal anode, with a liquid cathode of either tin or bismuth alloy with lead then surrounding the electrolyte and anode.

‘The solid electrolyte provides a high level of safety and reliability in physically and electronically separating the lithium anode from the cathode,’ explains Cui. ‘The battery demonstrates high current density and high efficiency while operating at an intermediate temperature.’

To test its durability over time, the researchers immersed their LLZTO tube in molten lithium at 300°C for two months. They reported no lithium penetration and no morphology change, and excellent chemical and mechanical stability of the ceramic tubes at high temperatures.

‘If you get the temperature down, it will reduce wear and tear on the components, so this is desirable,’ says Donald Sadoway, a materials chemist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. He recently reported on a liquid metal battery, but with a liquid electrolyte.

Sadoway says solid electrolytes have struggled to provide real world solutions. ‘We don’t have evidence of widespread adoption of a technology that relies on a solid electrolyte,’ he says. ‘I applaud this work for its accomplishment at a lab scale, but these batteries are going to have to last for decades and we just don’t know yet how this is going to scale up.’

Battery chemist Liangbing Hu at the University of Maryland, US, notes that the new liquid metal battery can be cycled at ‘a high current density,’ with temperatures ‘much lower than what was developed in the past 50 to 60 years’ for liquid metal batteries. He adds that ‘the next major step for commercialisation is to scale up the manufacturing at a low cost, given that they use relatively high-cost garnet-based lithium ion conductors’.

While oil has pretty much consumed the public’s attention in recent times, there are two other resources on top of the government’s wishlist and India is planning to go after them on a war-footing: Lithium and cobalt.

Anil Kumar Nayak, joint secretary in the mines ministry told The Economic Times that the government has directed three state-owned mineral companies to team up for a new venture tasked with scouting and acquiring strategic mineral assets abroad.

“The joint venture partners are National Aluminium Company (Nalco), Hindustan Copper (HCL) and Mineral Exploration Corp. Ltd (MECL),” said Nayak. This proposed joint venture – currently awaiting a few approvals before it “can be operationalised” – is likely to be formalised along the lines of ONGC Videsh, which buys oil and gas assets abroad. The proposal is reportedly with the Niti Aayog, which will conduct due diligence before it can be formalised. “The modalities of the venture will be worked out later, but the joint venture could partner Indian mining companies or join hands with local mining entities abroad,” added Nayak.

If the venture takes off, it will help the country build a strategic reserve of key minerals. For instance, India has no known sources of lithium and cobalt, two critical elements that go into batteries that not only power consumer electronics like mobile phones, laptops et al but also electric vehicles (EVs), the future of transport.

According to a Mckinsey report released last month, “the growing adoption of EVs and the need for EV batteries with higher energy densities will see the demand for lithium increase more than threefold between 2017 and 2025” while cobalt “will increase by 60 percent over the same period”. The forecast assumes that lithium-ion-battery technologies will be the prevalent battery technology for the foreseeable future. Incidentally, India is one of the largest importers of these batteries, importing nearly $150 million worth of them in 2017. Access to these two commodities is hence vital for India’s EV ambitions.

According to McKinsey, the world’s lithium supply boasts a global production footprint, including Australia, China, and Latin America, but cobalt is harder to come by. “Less than 10 per cent of cobalt supply occurs as a primary product, with the remainder produced as a by-product of primarily copper and nickel mines and more than 65 per cent of global production concentrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),” it added.

In fact, just last week, Bolivia, known to have the world’s largest reserves of lithium, offered the metal to India., The South American nation’s ambassador, Sergio Dario Arispe Barrientos, said that his country is willing to sign a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) – a pact between countries that provides preferential access to certain products by lowering tariff and other conditions – with India for select goods.

“We have already sent a letter that we want to start the negotiations on the PTA. We are still waiting to hear back from them. I understand it takes time. These things don’t start just like that. But the first step has been taken,” he said, adding that China is already acquiring the resource from Bolivia.

Indeed, China already has a headstart in this race for these strategic commodities, especially in Africa, just as it previously took the lead in the quest for oil and gas. As per media reports, Chinese imports of cobalt from the Congo, the world’s biggest producer of the mineral, was around $1.2 billion in the first nine months of 2017, compared with $3.2 million by India, the second-largest importer.

So India will have to work hard to catch up. The long-standing instability in DRC only complicates matters. As the daily points out, India previously attempted a similar model in an attempt to acquire iron ore assets in Hajigak, Afghanistan, but the project failed to materialise due to security concerns in that region.

“We are part of the initiative that is being taken by the government to build up assets in strategic minerals like lithium and cobalt,” HCL chairman Santosh Sharma told the daily, adding that the search will include rare earth elements that are much in demand for applications in defence and space technology but are not found in India.