Lithium News

Fluidized beds are used in a variety of industries and play an important role in the transition to green energy and the production of food and drugs. However, the process that occurs inside a fluidized bed is extremely complex and—due to lack of effective measurement techniques—has remained largely unknown. Now, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have developed a high-frequency radar technique that can measure exactly what is happening inside a fluidized bed with unrivaled precision. This breakthrough could lead to completely new and more efficient processes in several industries, including energy conversion. The work is published in the journal Fuel. Fluidized bed combustion is one of the leading technologies used in the world’s thermal power plants. This technology converts solid fuels, such as biomass and waste, into district heating and electricity. Fluidization technology is also fundamental to many other processes that are expected to play an important role globally in the transition of energy systems, and in circular resource flows—such as in carbon capture, energy storage and the production of hydrogen and other fossil-free fuels. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have now developed a radar technique able to provide a detailed characterization of the flow of solids in fluidized beds, the lack of which has been holding back the development of these processes. Fluidized beds are already the most effective technology for converting solid biofuels into energy. This technology results in an efficient and consistent rate of combustion because the solid particles assume a liquid-like state which helps to distribute the heat homogeneously in the combustion chamber. In brief, fluidization technology is based on a gas being blown through a bed of small sand-like particles in a reactor, so that these solid particles, the fuel and the gas, become thoroughly mixed.

Like a sandstorm and a wildfire in one

In order to achieve even greater efficiencies in this process, you need to be able to understand and control how the solid particles behave in the mixture. But the reactor environment is often hot, dirty and corrosive—like a sandstorm and a wildfire in one—effectively preventing any type of measurement and thus limiting our understanding of what is actually happening inside the reactor. The Chalmers researchers’ new solution to this problem is an extremely high-frequency radar technique that can measure the flows of solid particles in fluidized beds with unrivaled precision. Inspired by the pulse-Doppler radar used to track weather phenomena such as rain or snow, this is the first time the technique has been demonstrated in the context of a fluidized bed. This breakthrough is now expected to pave the way for new and more efficient processes in a number of industries. “The use of the high-frequency terahertz radar instrument demonstrated in our study has the potential to revolutionize how fluidized bed technology can be designed and used in many different industrial sectors—from energy conversion to the food industry and drug production. This is one of very few demonstrations of the use of pulse-Doppler radar technique at submillimeter wave frequencies, and it is the first time ever that it has been used for making measurements in a fluidized bed,” says Diana Carolina Guío Pérez, researcher in energy technology at Chalmers.

Unrivaled measurement accuracy

While the measurement techniques used in fluidized beds are normally low-resolution, produce results that are difficult to interpret, or cause disturbances in the flow, the Chalmers researchers’ high-frequency terahertz radar technique can penetrate the reactor from the outside and measure the behavior of the particles inside it without disturbing the flow. The radar technique can also measure the velocity and concentration of the solid particles simultaneously with great precision and high resolution in time and space. This means that even minimal changes in the flow can be detected in real-time, which is important when monitoring and controlling industrial processes. In the researchers’ study, the technique was demonstrated in practice, for the first time ever, in a three-meter high circulating fluidized bed boiler. Their findings showed a measurement quality that exceeded the quality achieved by the methods previously used in the field by a big margin. “We have been able to show that pulse-Doppler radar technique at frequencies up to 340 GHz can measure both the distribution of particles and their velocity inside a process reactor at a much higher resolution than other technologies can. This is information that has long been lacking in the field and will make it possible to improve and scale up process reactors and—in the case of energy conversion—reduce emissions of unwanted residual products,” says Marlene Bonmann, post-doc at the Terahertz and Millimeter Wave Laboratory at Chalmers University of Technology. “The knowledge that can be acquired with our high-frequency terahertz radar technique has the potential to break new ground in our understanding of solids flows in fluidized bed reactors and other solids handling units. For example, it can lead to improved operation and design of the reactors needed in existing and completely new fluidized bed-based conversion processes, such as carbon capture and storage, energy storage and thermal cycling,” says Diana Carolina Guío Pérez.

Argentina’s first plant for lithium batteries will begin operations in September, using metal extracted locally by US company Livent Corp, mining officials said on Saturday.

Livent had agreed earlier this year to supply lithium to the new plant, which was developed by Y-TEC, a unit of Argentine state oil firm YPF.

“We will start to produce the first lithium-ion battery cells in the country,” said Roberto Salvarezza, president of Y-TEC, in a government statement, noting that the batteries will use lithium carbonate extracted by Livent in northern Argentina.

Argentina is the world’s fourth largest producer of lithium and has been attracting investment. Along with Chile and Bolivia, the country is in South America’s so-called ‘lithium triangle’, which holds the world’s largest trove of the ultra-light metal, highly coveted for its use in batteries.

Argentina’s mining minister Fernanda Avila said she hoped it would be an example for future projects.

“The development of the supply around mining activity is a priority for our government,” she said.

Hiden Analytical, a leading provider of advanced scientific instrumentation, today announced the successful application of its Quadrupole Focused Ion Beam Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (FIB-SIMS) for lithium-ion battery research. This ground-breaking technique offers unparalleled sensitivity and resolution for low mass detection of lithium, significantly advancing the study of lithium-ion batteries.​​​​​​​

As the demand for electric vehicles and portable electronics continues to grow, so does the need for efficient and reliable energy storage systems. Lithium-ion batteries have emerged as a promising solution, but further improvements in performance and safety require a deeper understanding of the complex processes within these batteries. Hiden Analytical’s FIB-SIMS offers a powerful solution to this challenge, enabling researchers to obtain crucial information on lithium distribution and concentration within the battery.

This breakthrough has been demonstrated in the study “Combined focused ion beam and secondary ion mass spectrometry for high resolution light element detection applied on Li-Ion batteries” published in the August 2021 issue of Microscopy and Microanalysis. The study showcases the capabilities of Hiden Analytical’s FIB-SIMS in detecting low mass elements such as lithium with high sensitivity and precision.

Hiden Analytical’s FIB-SIMS also offers seamless integration with Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopes (FIB-SEM), providing researchers with a myriad of benefits, including correlative imaging, in-situ sample preparation, and 3D elemental analysis. The combination of FIB-SIMS and FIB-SEM allows for a comprehensive understanding of lithium-ion battery microstructures, leading to the development of more efficient and safer energy storage systems.

“We are excited to see the successful application of our FIB-SIMS technology in lithium-ion battery research,” said Dr. Dane Walker, Technical Marketing Manager at Hiden Analytical. “This breakthrough demonstrates our commitment to advancing scientific research and providing cutting-edge solutions for the ever-growing energy storage market.”

Glencore Plc is in advanced talks about backing a lithium project in Argentina being developed by French miner Eramet SA, in return for future supplies of the key battery ingredient.

The commodity giant will sign an offtake agreement in exchange for helping to fund the lithium processing plant that Eramet is building with China’s Tsingshan Holding Group Co., according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

The Argentina plant is one of a slew of new projects being developed around the world to meet surging demand for lithium. The metal is vital to the shift to electric vehicles and is facing a supply crunch toward the end of this decade. While sales in the relatively tiny market were historically agreed bilaterally in long-term deals between producers and their customers, commodity traders like Glencore have begun seeking to build up lithium businesses.

It is unclear how much Glencore will invest and how much lithium it will secure from the offtake agreement.

A spokesman for Glencore declined to comment. Eramet said it had received interest from several potential partners including Glencore, and that “talks are continuing to determine which offer is in the best interest of the company.”

As one of the world’s biggest commodity merchants, Glencore regularly signs deals with producers for some or all of their future supply, which it trades alongside production from its own sprawling suite of operations.

The company doesn’t mine any lithium but it does produce the material at its recycling operations and is looking to grow in lithium trading. Chief executive officer Gary Nagle said in December it had set up a desk with two to three traders.

The deal comes as automakers including Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. are stepping up efforts to secure future lithium supplies, including by striking direct pacts with miners — a shift from tradition in which they typically bought automotive components or entered into long-term contracts for raw materials at fixed prices.

Eramet is building the 24,000-ton-a-year lithium processing plant with China’s Tsingshan, which is the world’s biggest producer of nickel and stainless steel.

The project has an estimated cost of more than €700 million ($763 million) and is due to start production in the second quarter of next year, with a full ramp-up by mid-2025, Eramet said in a presentation in May. The French company and its Chinese partner plan to decide later this year whether to triple the plant’s capacity.

Threatened by possible shortages of lithium for electric car batteries, automakers are racing to lock in supplies of the once-obscure “white gold” in a politically and environmentally fraught competition from China to Nevada to Chile.

General Motors Co. and the parent company of China’s BYD Auto Ltd. went straight to the source and bought stakes in lithium miners, a rare step in an industry that relies on outside vendors for copper and other raw materials. Others are investing in lithium refining or ventures to recycle the silvery-white metal from used batteries.

A shortfall in lithium supplies would be an obstacle for plans to ramp up sales to tens of millions of electric vehicles a year. It is fueling political conflict over resources and complaints about the environmental cost of extracting them.

“We already have that risk” of not being able to get enough, GM’s chief financial officer, Paul A. Jacobson, said at a Deutsche Bank conference in mid-June.

“We’ve got to have partnerships with people that can get us the lithium in the form that we need,” Jacobson said.

Ford Motor Co. has signed contracts stretching up to 11 years into the future with lithium suppliers on two continents. Volkswagen AG and Honda Motor Co. are trying to reduce their need for freshly mined ore by forming recycling ventures.

Global lithium output is on track to triple this decade, but sales of electric SUVs, sports cars and sedans that rose 55% last year threaten to outrun that. Each battery requires about eight kilograms (17 pounds) of lithium, plus cobalt, nickel and other metals.

“There will be a shortage of EV battery supplies,” said Joshua Cobb, senior auto analyst for BMI.

Adding to uncertainty, lithium has emerged as another conflict in strained U.S.-Chinese relations.

Beijing, Washington and other governments see metal supplies for electric vehicles as a strategic issue and are tightening controls on access. Canada ordered three Chinese companies last year to sell lithium mining assets on security grounds.

Other governments including Indonesia, Chile and Zimbabwe are trying to maximize their return on deposits of lithium, cobalt and nickel by requiring miners to invest in refining and processing before they can export.

GM is buying direct access to lithium by investing $650 million in the Canadian developer of a Nevada mine that is the biggest U.S. source. In return, GM says it will get enough for 1 million vehicles a year.

Conservationists and American Indians are asking a federal court to block development of the Nevada mine, which the Biden administration has embraced as part of its clean energy agenda. Opponents say it might poison water supplies and soil and pollute nesting grounds for birds.

Despite rising output, the industry may face shortages of lithium and cobalt as early as 2025 if enough isn’t invested in production, according to Leonardo Paoli and Timur Gul of the International Energy Agency.

“Supply side bottlenecks are becoming a real challenge,” Paoli and Gul said in a report last year.

Automakers might be putting in their own money to reassure “notoriously risk-averse” miners, according to Alastair Bedwell of GlobalData. He said miners are reluctant to “go all out” on lithium until they are sure the industry won’t switch to batteries made with other metals.

Even if they do, developing lithium sources is a yearslong process.

Worldwide lithium resources are estimated at 80 million tons by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Bolivia’s are the biggest at 21 millions tons, followed by Australia with 17 million and Chile with 9 million.

Forecasts of annual production range as high as 1.5 million tons by 2030. But demand, if EV sales keep rising at double-digit annual rates, is forecast to increase to up to 3 million tons.

EV sales took off in 2021, more than doubling over the previous year to 6.8 million, according to EV Volumes, a research firm. Last year’s sales rose to 10.5 million.

China accounted for 60% of last year’s sales, two-thirds of production and three-quarters of battery manufacturing.

President Joe Biden last year announced an official goal for half of all new cars sold in the United State to be electric or other zero-emissions technology by 2030.

As sales rise, so does official anxiety, especially in Washington and Beijing, about access to lithium and other minerals and the potential for strategic competition.

Volkswagen’s battery unit, PowerCo, signed an agreement with Canada last August to develop suppliers of “critical raw materials” including lithium, cobalt and nickel.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in a statement welcomed cooperation with “close friends” on “raw material security.”

China’s government has accused the United States, Canada, Japan and other governments of misusing phony security concerns to hurt Chinese competitors in electric cars, smartphones, clean energy and other emerging technologies.

Other governments welcome Chinese investment. China’s biggest lithium producer, Ganfeng Lithium Co., bought Argentina’s Lithea Inc. last year for $962 million.

About two-thirds of the world’s lithium comes from mines. That involves crushing rock and using acids to extract metals. It leaves toxic heaps of chemical-laced tailings.

The rest is extracted from salt lakes or salt flats. That can require vast evaporation ponds.

The industry is working on technology to extract lithium from hot springs and clay deposits with less environmental impact.

As they ramp up supplies, automakers face another bottleneck: Lack of refining capacity to purify raw lithium into battery material.

Tesla Inc. is building a refinery in Texas. Others including BMW AG are buying stakes in refiners.

As for GM, “I don’t know” whether it will build its own refinery, Jacobson said.

Namibia’s mines minister did not have the power to cancel a Chinese lithium miner’s licence and should have approached the courts to revoke it, a judge ruled on Tuesday.

Lithium miner Xinfeng took Namibia’s mines minister Tom Alweendo to court after he cancelled the company’s mining licence in April and ordered it to stop operations by May 31. The minister accused the company of obtaining the licence after a flawed application process.

Xinfeng challenged the minister’s decision in Namibia’s High Court, arguing that Alweendo did not have the power to revoke his earlier decision to grant the mining licence.

“The first respondent (mines minister) did not have the power to revoke the mining licence without the express or implied authority to do so under the governing legislation, but was required to approach the courts for an appropriate relief,” Acting High Court Judge Ramon Maasdorp ruled.

The mines ministry and Xinfeng were not immediately available to comment.

Last October, the Namibian government banned Xinfeng from exporting lithium ore to China, saying the shipments were irregular. Xinfeng denied the allegations, saying it had shipped 75,000 metric tons of lithium ore to its Chinese headquarters for tests to determine the design of a lithium processing plant in Namibia.

On June 8, Namibia banned the export of unprocessed lithium and other critical minerals as it seeks to encourage local processing and profit from growing global demand for metals used in clean energy technologies.

The southern African country has significant deposits of lithium, vital for renewable energy storage, as well as rare earth minerals such as dysprosium and terbium needed for permanent magnets in the batteries of electric cars and wind turbines.