Lithium News

Five years ago, Liu Gong bought an electric car for just over 100,000 yuan (US$14,600) with the help of government subsidies. Its battery has now weakened to less than 70% of the original capacity. To continue driving, he has been told that he will have to pay around 60,000 yuan (US$8,277) to replace the battery.

“For not too much more, I could just buy a new car,” he says. A dealer told him that the depreciation in the price of old batteries means any buyback from the dealership would mean practically giving the battery away for free. Staff, unable to give any concrete guidance, suggested he deal with it himself.

But how should he go about doing that? Liu Gong, who is among 13.1 million EV owners in China – or 4.1% of total car owners – isn’t alone in his predicament.

EV batteries are typically usable for five to eight years. Once the battery deteriorates to 70-80% of its original capacity, there’s no real way for it to satisfactorily power an EV.

Around 2016, the Chinese EV industry entered a period of rapid growth, and since 2021, there has been a notable increase in batteries falling into disuse. By 2022, the capacity of decommissioned batteries had reached a total of 34.5 gigawatt-hours (GWh) – or 277,000 tonnes. It is forecast to reach 116 GWh – around 780,000 tonnes – by 2025.

Power batteries contain substances that are harmful to the environment, such as heavy metals and electrolytes, as research by Energy Foundation China highlights. If sent to landfill, these could leak into the ground and upset the pH balance in the soil, threatening ecologies and human health.

Recycling batteries doesn’t just help to reduce this kind of pollution. There is also a pressing need for it, as the EV industry’s demand for batteries increases by the day. Battery production requires several crucial resources for which China has limited supplies, including nickel, cobalt and lithium. China is the world’s largest consumer and importer of lithium, with 65% of demand relying on imports. Effective recycling would reduce this dependency on imports, guaranteeing supply, while also alleviating the negative effects of extracting raw materials at home and abroad.

The government has already recognised the importance of recycling batteries. As early as 2012, the State Council proposed drafting a means of managing battery recycling and reuse, and of establishing a management system for tiered reuse and recycling. However, China is yet to build a mature recycling system. Obstacles in the way of implementing relevant measures have created fertile ground for a black market industry of small workshops.

Recycling chaos in ‘small workshops’

In recent years, several media reports have addressed the problem of trustworthy “whitelist businesses” being unable to supersede small workshops in China’s battery-recycling industry.

Whitelist recyclers are those listed as being compliant with the Industrial Regulatory Requirements for the Integrated Repurposing of Disused Power-storing Batteries. To get on the list, businesses must submit a self-assessment of their technology, industrial work, and energy consumption to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. By the end of December 2022, the ministry had published four lists of compliant companies, of which there were 88 in total. Among them were car and battery manufacturers, as well as independent recycling firms.

Compare that to the number of registered companies involved in the battery recycling industry as a whole: by 2018, there were over 1,000 such businesses, according to data from Qichacha, an online database of China-based companies. This reached 3,400 in 2020, and an explosion of registrations took the number to 24,500 by 2021.

Less than one-quarter of decommissioned batteries go to whitelist businesses, leaving the remaining processing work to be acquired by small workshops, according to the Energy Storage Application branch of the China Industrial Association of Power Sources. Other data from market research company Gaogong Lithium Batteries shows that batteries recycled through approved channels only make up 20-30% of the total.

Zeng Yuqun, chairperson of CATL, a lithium-ion battery manufacturer, said: “On the whole, approved recycling businesses struggle to get their hands on decommissioned batteries, meaning a large amount of high-quality recycling capacity is sitting idle.”

Li Xiangnan, executive director of Green Anhui, a grassroots environmental organisation, told China Dialogue that the competitive edge of small workshops lies mainly in price and convenience. They can often lure in car owners with a high buying price and home collection service.

A reporter from Latepost saw firsthand the disassembly process in a small workshop while carrying out investigative interviews. Not wearing any goggles, two male workers cut a crevice in the chassis of a car by hand, then used metal bars to wrench open a larger hole before removing the battery with their bare hands.

Li Xiangnan says that compared to approved businesses, some illegal workshops lower costs by hardly investing in environmental protection. Lots of car owners are not aware of the hidden environmental and safety risks that come with using small workshops. They simply want to sell for a good price, and don’t consider whether the recycling point complies with regulations.

He also points out that while the industry ministry publishes its whitelist, the law does not provide businesses on the list with any compulsory protections – such as subsidies or crack downs on illegal businesses – and small workshops are well concealed and therefore very difficult to regulate. Civil society organisations can normally only monitor non-compliant businesses’ release of pollutants, such as gas and wastewater.

Who is responsible for recycling?

In China, the Provisional Measures on the Recycling and Repurposing of EV Power Storage Batteriesstipulates that EV manufacturers bear the primary responsibility for recycling old batteries and should establish a network of recycling service centres, based on their sales network, that can collect them. Stored batteries can then be transferred to recycling business with whom they have agreed partnerships.

It is clear that battery manufacturers, car companies and recycling firms would ideally form their own closed loops. Car companies could directly receive disused batteries from consumers across a comprehensive sales network before passing them onto third-party specialists for recycling. Recycling companies could then extract materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel to sell back to manufacturers for making new batteries.

However, once a vehicle has been sold to a consumer, the battery becomes the consumer’s property. How then are manufacturers to take on the responsibility of effectively recycling old batteries? Li Xiangnan says that to facilitate this, Green Anhui will be producing a series of videos to educate EV owners about the environmental impact of non-compliant recycling and encourage them to recycle through approved channels.

To achieve a breakthrough as soon as possible, some manufacturers are exploring commercial models. EV manufacturer Nio is launching a “battery-lease” scheme that sees people rent batteries rather than own them. The car becomes the property of the consumer but the rights to the battery belong to a third party, thereby preventing the consumer from selling it on. In a 2021 article for China Dialogue, Yang Muyi, associate director of clean energy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, proposed measures such as deposit return schemes or subsidies to encourage consumers to turn over batteries to the approved channels, limiting the space for black-market operators.

In addition, the government should also take on supervisory responsibilities. As the world’s largest producer of batteries and largest market for EVs, China has already launched a platform for tracing batteries. Every vehicle battery produced in, or imported into, China has a unique serial number, which can be used to help follow the battery and deal with it appropriately throughout its lifecycle.

Yang Muyi told China Dialogue that this tracing platform aims to build the foundations of a standardised battery-recycling system. Battery producers, car companies and retailers, and battery repurposing and recycling companies, are all expected to update information on the platform in a timely manner, ensuring that disused batteries are ultimately dealt with appropriately.

EU battery laws speed up reforms

China is not the only one implementing battery serial numbers. In July 2023, the European Union passed the new European Battery Regulation, which stipulates that by 2026, power batteries must have a passport to be sold in the European Economic Area. Battery passports keep records of manufacturing history, chemical components, technological specifications, and carbon footprint.

Moreover, the law makes demands regarding disused batteries, requiring that 45% of all batteries are recycled by the end of 2023 and 70% by 2030. More detailed stipulations exist for different metals, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper.

The EU is a major importer of lithium batteries from China. Data from the Chinese customs head office shows that in the first quarter of this year, the top five importers of Chinese lithium batteries were the US, Germany, South Korea, the Netherlands, and Vietnam, accounting for 62.6% of all exports. Batteries sent to Germany and the Netherlands were worth 27.3 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion) in total, more than the 22.5 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) imported by the US.

Professor Xu Ming, of Tsinghua University’s School of Materials Science and Engineering, believes the European Battery Regulation initiates a shift towards circularity in the global battery industry by stipulating efficient recycling and quotas for repurposed materials. In order to meet the EU’s requirements, Chinese battery manufacturers, car manufacturers, and other parties should cooperate to build a recycling system for disused batteries, improving their own battery-recycling efficiency and increasing the amount of materials repurposed, he said.

Speaking at the 2023 Summer Davos Forum, around the time the law took effect, CATL chief production officer Ni Jun said the company was negotiating with an EU partner to set up several EV battery-recycling stations, while seeking a partner in North America for the same purpose.

Yang Muyi believes China’s battery-recycling industry is still in its early stages, with the relevant laws and oversights still being refined. The new European Battery Regulation will hopefully press China to strengthen its laws and regulations and standardise industry development. As the market matures, leading exporters to the EU will likely formulate some industry norms. This should spur their development among other domestic companies and gradually drive out non-compliant workshops.

Can recycling reduce mineral extraction?

Yang Muyi thinks that with the transition to renewables, the demand for rare metals like lithium is bound to continue increasing and that in the long-term, recycling them will be an economic given. But recycling a proportion of metals is not just an economic consideration, he says. More importantly, it can play a role in stabilising supply chains and reduce Chinese dependence on imported metals.

However, it will be difficult to meet the growing demand for raw materials through battery recycling alone.

A report by the International Council on Clean Transportation, a Berlin-based thinktank,  suggests that if battery technology were not to change, in the two decades from 2020 to 2040, the accumulated demand for raw materials would be 11-12 million tonnes of lithium, 48-55 million tonnes of nickel, and 3-4 million tonnes of cobalt. This corresponds to about half of the global reserves deemed economically recoverable in 2022, and about 13-18% of total estimated reserves.

The mining of metals crucial to battery production is a delicate issue in China. The recently published 2023 Evaluation of Global Mineral Reserves, from the National Energy Administration, assessed global and domestic reserves of 13 minerals. The report was clear that China’s share of global reserves of nine minerals – including lithium, cobalt, and nickel – were relatively low and in short supply.

The 2021-25 National Security Strategy, reviewed by the Politburo in November 2021, elevated mineral security to a national strategic issue for the first time, positioning stable, strategic mineral supply chains as key work for the state.

For now, the Chinese battery industry will probably choose to mine more. China’s largest lithium compound producer, Ganfeng Lithium, recently announced that the likelihood of recycling replacing mining in the short term is small. “As for the long-term value in recycling heavy-duty lithium batteries, it is projected to become a larger function of the business in the future,” it said.

Mining heavy metals needed for EVs has raised resource and environmental concerns in recent years. The extraction of lithium from salt lakes can consume a large amount of water and electricity, and lithium mine projects undertaken by Chinese companies in Chile and Argentina have caused local disputes. Domestically, lithium mining and processing have caused environmental pollution in Sichuan province and Yichun, Jiangxi province.

Controls on mineral demands are a complex issue. In order to stabilise supply chains in the future, considerations such as developing batteries that are less reliant on these materials, and policy guidance that cuts down demand for new cars, will be of utmost importance.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) provide our portable devices like tablets and mobiles—and increasingly also vehicles—with power. As the share of volatile renewable energy needing electricity storage increases, more and more LIBs are needed, lithium prices rise, resources dwindle, and the amount of depleted batteries that contain toxic substances increases.

In the journal Angewandte Chemie, researchers introduce a novel approach for the recovery of lithium from used LIBs.

The recycling of LIBs is a difficult undertaking. The recovery of lithium of a quality high enough to be used again is complicated and expensive. Most recycling processes are targeted at extracting the lithium from cathodes (where most of the lithium in discharged batteries is located). However, it then precipitates out together with other metals contained in the cathode and must be painstakingly separated.

Extraction from the anodes, which consist primarily of graphite, is significantly more efficient and can be carried out without discharging the battery beforehand. Because of their high reactivity, however, the risk of fires and explosions is high if the anodes are leached out with aqueous solutions, as is usual. These reactions release large amounts of energy and may produce hydrogen.

A team led by Yu-Guo Guo and Qinghai Meng at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS) and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) has now developed an alternative method that avoids these problems. Instead of water, they use aprotic organic solutions to recover lithium from anodes. Aprotic substances cannot release any hydrogen ions, so no hydrogen gas can form.

The solutions consist of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and an ether as the solvent. Certain PAHs can take up a positively charged lithium ion from the graphite anode together with one electron. Under mild conditions, this redox reaction is controlled and very efficient. With the PAH pyrene in tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether, it was possible to dissolve the active lithium from the anodes almost completely.

An additional advantage is that the resulting lithium-PAH solutions can be used directly as reagents, for example, in adding lithium to new anodes in preprocessing or in regenerating spent cathodes. The PAH/solvent system can be varied to optimize it for the material being treated.

This recovery process is efficient and inexpensive, reduces safety risks, avoids waste, and opens new prospects for the sustainable recycling of LIBs.

How are you reading this article? Most likely with a smartphone, a tablet or a laptop.

What do they all have in common? Batteries.

Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries

Yep. Invaluable, rechargeable, lithium-based batteries that allow you to use devices for hours or even days at a time, carrying millions of times more computing power in your pocket than what landed the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon’s surface in July 1969.

These convenient pieces of technology — first made commercially available in 1991 by Japanese firms Sony and Asahi Kasei — completely revolutionized the world.

Lithium-ion batteries are a very efficient way to store energy. Compared to predecessors, they have a high energy density, which means that they can store a lot of energy in a small space. They also have a long lifespan and can be recharged many times. But even better, next-gen ones are under development.

Rechargeable batteries are also playing a key role in the fight against climate change by powering e-vehicles. That’s why more and more countries — among them Canada, the UK, the EU, China and India — are planning bans on selling new fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. In some places, like Norway, the bans begin as soon as 2030.

And as Germany’s annual IAA car show kicks off in Munich on Tuesday  — one of the world’s biggest — electric cars and  batteries are among the protagonists.

This follows huge breakthroughs in the battery world announced in the last few months by big companies and giant car manufacturers like Samsung, Toyota, Ford and Honda.

Much of the buzz is about solid-state batteries. They promise to be longer-lived, smaller, faster to charge and pack more of a power punch. Some companies claim they want to start mass production as early as 2024.

What are solid-state batteries?

Short answer: They’re like regular lithium batteries, but better.

They work according to the same principles, just without any liquid components inside. That battery on your smartphone has a fluid component called an electrolyte, which allows lithium ions to flow freely. And that ultimately powers your devices.

Why do we need them?

Conventional liquid-electrolyte lithium batteries need to be pretty large to power something the size of a car. They have safety issues and can swell due to changes in temperature or leak when squeezed too hard. The liquid inside is also flammable.

As you probably know, your phone’s battery usually doesn’t last too long. Everyone has felt “my-phone-battery-is-dying” anxiety. Though better than their forebears, conventional lithium-ion batteries’ energy density could be improved. They also charge slowly and have a limited lifespan. This makes them less than ideal for many applications, among them e-vehicles, along with medical devices like pacemakers or electric planes.

How are solid-state batteries better?

Solid-state batteries have a higher energy density than standard lithium-ion counterparts, which means they can store more energy in the same volume. This can translate into longer-range electric vehicles or smartphones that can go for days on a single charge, as well as smaller, lighter batteries for portable devices. And who knows? They might even one day make electric flight a feasible scenario.

Solid-state batteries can also charge faster than liquid-electrolyte ones, making them more suitable for electric vehicles and other applications where fast charging is important. No more waiting five hours to get back on the road!

Solid-state batteries are also safer. Because they’re less likely to catch fire or explode than liquid batteries, they’re better suited for use in applications where safety is a concern, such as electric vehicles and drones.

At least, that’s according to theory. Making an actual commercially available solid-state battery at an affordable price is a whole different matter.

But to understand what that means and why a commercially available solid-state battery would be a breakthrough, let’s quickly go over the battery basics you learned back in school.

How do lithium batteries work?

The basic elements in a lithium-ion battery are a side with a positive electrode, a side with a negative electrode, and a separator layer in-between that prevents any direct contact. All that is submerged in a liquid electrolyte.

The key to lithium-based batteries is that lithium atoms are very good electron donors. They really want to get rid of the single electron they have on their outer shell. The flow of these electrons is the electric current that comes out of the battery.

And by the way, when a lithium atom loses that outer electron, it becomes a positively charged ion. That’s where the name “lithium-ion battery” comes from.

The separator layer we mentioned earlier allows lithium ions to pass through, but not electrons. So it also acts like an insulator.

The negative electrode side of the battery contains graphite that stores lithium atoms when the battery is charged. When you plug in the device, the battery begins to discharge. The lithium loses an electron to electrical flow — turning it into an ion — and the ion travels through the liquid electrolyte and through the separator into the positive electrode side. The positive side is usually made of compounds that also have downsides and limitations. Not to mention that the use of liquid electrolytes has several drawbacks.

Researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology have tripled the energy density of their experimental proton batteries, presenting an alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere. Chances are, they power your phone, laptop, appliances, and other electronics. Lithium-ion batteries have a high energy density, which means they can store a lot of energy in a relatively small space. Because of this, they are often used to power electric vehicles.

They don’t come without a cost, though. Lithium and other rare earth metals necessary to make lithium-ion batteries are difficult to recycle. If they end up in landfills, they can release harmful toxins into the soil and nearby waterways. In addition, mining and processing lithium and the other metals that lithium-ion batteries require significant energy, contributing to air pollution that requires frequent use of the battery to offset. Finally, demand for EVs could soon outpace lithium supplies, threatening attempts to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

The RMIT team’s timing couldn’t be better. Their new proton battery has an energy density of 245 watt hours per kilogram, nearly three times the energy density of the team’s 2018 prototype. This energy density rivals that of conventional lithium-ion batteries, which typically have an energy density of around 260 Wh/kg.

Proton batteries use a carbon electrode and are charged by splitting water molecules.

“The main resource used in our proton battery is carbon, which is abundant, available in all countries, and cheap compared to the resources needed for other types of rechargeable battery such as lithium, cobalt, and vanadium,” said lead researcher and RMIT professor John Andrews in a statement.

The battery is charged with a conventional power outlet. After that, electricity from the power supply splits water molecules, releasing protons that bond with the battery’s carbon electrode. The battery can store these protons to be discharged and converted into power later.

“When discharging, protons are released from the carbon electrode and pass through a membrane to combine with oxygen to form water — this is the reaction that generates power,” Andrews said.

Because they use abundant and readily available materials, these batteries are both cheap and more environmentally friendly than lithium-ion batteries. Aside from the power used to charge them, the production and usage of the batteries themselves generate almost no pollution. They don’t require the mining and processing lithium-ion batteries do, and, unlike lithium-ion batteries, they’re easily recyclable.

“As the world shifts to intermittent renewable energy to achieve net-zero greenhouse emissions, additional storage options that are efficient, cheap, safe, and have secure supply chains will be in high demand,” Andrews said. “That’s where this proton battery — which is a very equitable and safe technology — could have real value and why we are keen to continue developing it into a viable alternative.”

The RMIT team will continue its partnership with automotive component supplier Eldor Corporation to further develop the technology.

With the rapid growth of the smart and wearable electronic devices market, smart next-generation energy storage systems that have energy storage functions as well as additional color-changing properties are receiving a great deal of attention. However, existing electrochromic devices have low electrical conductivity, leading to low efficiency in electron and ion mobility, and low storage capacities. Such batteries have therefore been limited to use in flexible and wearable devices.

On August 21, a joint research team led by Professor Il-Doo Kim from the KAIST Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) and Professor Tae Gwang Yun from the Myongji University Department of Materials Science and Engineering announced the development of a smart electrochromic Zn-ion battery that can visually represent its charging and discharging processes using an electrochromic polymer anode incorporated with a “π-bridge spacer,” which increases electron and ion mobility efficiency.

Their research was published as an inside cover article for Advanced Materials on August 3 under the title, “A π-Bridge Spacer Embedded Electron Donor-Acceptor Polymer for Flexible Electrochromic Zn-Ion Batteries.”

Batteries topped with electrochromic properties are groundbreaking inventions that can visually represent their charged and discharged states using colors, and can be used as display devices that cut down energy consumption for indoor cooling by controlling solar absorbance. The research team successfully built a flexible and electrochromic smart Zn-ion battery that can maintain its excellent electrochromic and electrochemical properties, even under long-term exposure to the atmosphere and mechanical deformations.

To maximize the efficiency of electron and ion mobility, the team modeled and synthesized the first π-bridge spacer-incorporated polymer anode in the world. π-bonds can improve the mobility of electrons within a structure to speed up ion movement and maximize ion adsorption efficiency, which improves its energy storage capacity.

In anode-based batteries with a π-bridge spacer, the spacer provides room for quicker ion movement. This allows fast charging, an improved zinc-ion discharging capacity of 110 mAh/g, which is 40% greater than previously reported, and a 30% increase in electrochromic function that switches from dark blue to transparent when the device is charged/discharged.

In addition, should the transparent flexible battery technology be applied to smart windows, they would display darker colors during the day while they absorb solar energy, and function as a futuristic energy storage technique that can block out UV radiation and replace curtains.

Professor Il-Doo Kim said, “We have developed a polymer incorporated with a π-bridge spacer and successfully built a smart Zn-ion battery with excellent electrochromic efficiency and high energy storage capacity.” He added, “This technique goes beyond the existing concept of batteries that are used simply as energy storage devices, and we expect this technology to be used as a futuristic energy storage system that accelerates innovation in smart batteries and wearable technologies.”

The hybrid battery both stores electrical energy and generates useful chemicals simultaneously.

Rechargeable batteries store electricity in their electrode materials, while redox flow batteries use chemicals stored in tanks attached to the electrodes. Scientists have recently engineered a hybrid battery system that not only stores and provides electricity, but also generates useful chemicals in a flow system.

While in use the furfural–nickel hydroxide battery transforms biomass-sourced furfural into either furfuryl alcohol or furoic acid.

Furfural is a small molecule formed from pentose sugars common in agricultural biomass, and it is considered an important platform chemical from which a number of intermediates can be obtained for various applications. It can be oxidized to furoic acid, a food preservative and intermediate in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and fragrances.

When reduced, furfural is converted into furfuryl alcohol, a precursor in resins, flavors, and drugs. Haohong Duan and a team of researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, have now succeeded in obtaining both value-added chemicals during the operation of a hybrid flow battery, increasing the cost efficiency of the battery system.

When charged, standard rechargeable batteries store electricity in their electrodes and feed it into a circuit as they discharge. Another battery type, redox flow batteries, stores electricity in chemicals, with the chemical products cycling between two states and remaining within the battery. Combining both concepts, the researchers investigated the extent to which such batteries are able to produce extra chemicals while storing or providing energy.

A breakthrough came in the form of a bifunctional metal catalyst for the anode. Made of a rhodium–copper single-atom alloy, this catalyst smoothly converted electrolyte-containing furfural into furfuryl alcohol when the battery was charged, while furoic acid was formed as the battery was discharged. For the cathode, the researchers identified a cobalt-doped nickel hydroxide material, similar to cathode materials used in traditional nickel–zinc or nickel–metal hydride batteries.

This assembly led to a true dual-use battery system: after charging (using a solar cell), four series-connected hybrid batteries were able to run various devices, including LED lights and smartphones, while continually producing furfuryl alcohol and furoic acid during battery cycling, with these chemicals being conducted away using a flow system.

The authors found that the new hybrid battery is comparable to a number of common batteries in terms of energy density and power density, but it provides both power and value-added chemicals at the same time. While storing 1 kWh of energy, 0.7 kg of furfuryl alcohol is produced, and 1 kg of furoic acid is produced when the system provides a power of 0.5 kWh (on which a refrigerator can run for a couple of hours). However, furfural is continually fed into the system and the products must be separated from the electrolyte.

The team’s hybrid concept is a step toward improving the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of rechargeable batteries, but there is still a need to develop the concept further.