key: cord-0067444-il5m9of6
authors: Backhaus, Richard
title: Battery Raw Materials - Where from and Where to?
date: 2021-09-10
journal: MTZ Worldw
DOI: 10.1007/s38313-021-0712-5
sha: 80d67fabc516f608383c4a48a2137b8f04508347
doc_id: 67444
cord_uid: il5m9of6

nan

When assessing the deposits of raw materials, two different figures need to be taken into consideration: on the one hand, the resources generally avail able on the planet and, on the other, the deposits that can be extracted cost effectively using today's technology at current market prices. At this point, one can give the allclear for lithium ion vehicle batteries. Scientists have confirmed that enough raw materials are available. In most cases, the total deposits will significantly exceed the predicted demand, even if the amount of raw materials needed were to in crease in parallel as a result of more demand in other areas.

However, several studies indicate that temporary shortages or price in creases for individual raw materials are certain ly possible, for example if new production sites have to be open ed, if the demand is too great or if there are problems with exports from produc ing countries [2] . The situation varies considerably across the different met als, as an indepth analysis and assess ment by the German Mineral Resources Agency (Dera) shows [3] , which is de scribed in more detail in the following for the five chemical elements.

Battery Raw Materials -Where from and Where to?

Electric cars make up a growing share of the market, which means that larger numbers of batteries will need to be produced and this in turn will lead to an increasing demand for raw materials. In particular during the ramp-up phase of electric mobility, there are likely to be occasional supply bottlenecks. At a later stage, recycling concepts for used battery cells could relieve the pressure on supply chains.

Graphite is used as the anode material in lithiumion batteries. It has the high est proportion by volume of all the bat tery raw materials and also represents a significant percentage of the costs of cell production. China has played a dom inant role in almost the entire supply chain for several years and produces al most 50 % of the world's synthetic graph ite and 70 % of the flake graphite, which requires pretreatment before being used in batteries. Over the last few years, in creasing exploration has been taking place, in particular in Africa. New ex traction sites in Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar could relieve the pres sure on the highly concentrated world market. However, the risks involved in the processing of flake graphite also pre sent a problem for the security of supply, because this is carried out almost entire ly in China, together with the production of anodes. Research is currently under way into new anode materials [4] , which if they were used in massproduced batteries could have an impact on the future demand for graphite.

Like nickel and manganese, cobalt is required for battery cathodes. It cur rently presents the greatest procure ment risks of all the battery raw mate rials. This is due in particular to the expected dynamic growth in demand and the resulting potential supply bottle necks. "On the basis of current scenar ios, the demand for cobalt for electric vehicles could increase to as much as 315,000 t by 2030, which is 20 times the current amount," says Siyamend Al Barazi from Dera. The ongoing develop ment of lowcobalt or even cobaltfree cathodes could result in a considerable reduction in overall demand. The role of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is by far the largest producer, presents major risks for strategic plan ning. "Cobalt mining there has domi nated the global market for more than ten years, with a current market share of 69 %, and the country could increase its production considerably if demand continues to grow," explains Al Barazi.

As the lithium market is relatively small, the expected increase in de mand is particularly high in relation to current production levels. "Our cal culations show that the supply needs to triple by 2026 simply to cover future demand," says Michael Schmidt from Dera. The extraction of lithium is cur rently restricted to Australia, Chile and Argentina and to a few companies, with only four businesses controlling almost 60 % of global production. However, the boom in lithium over recent years has demonstrated that the lithium mar ket is facing major changes. Alongside the expansion of existing facilities, large scale projects are being planned and implemented in other countries, such as Canada, Mexico and Bolivia. Europe also has significant potential. Bottle necks in the supply of lithium are cur rently unlikely, but experts have indi cated that the concentration on just a few producer countries will remain unchanged. "In addition, Asian bat tery manufacturers in particular have secured large quotas by entering into longterm supply contracts and acquir ing stakes in companies. This has re duced considerably the amount of lith ium freely available on the world mar ket," says Schmidt. extracted throughout the world is used in lithium ion batteries. In the future, this figure will only increase to around 1 %.

The global demand for nickel to produce lithiumion batteries was more than 150,000 t in 2019 [3] . This amounts to less than 5 % of the world market vol ume of primary nickel. By 2025, the de mand from the electric vehicle sector could increase to approximately 500,000 t per year, which would be the equivalent of 15 % of the total global market. To increase the energy density of lithium ion batteries, a much greater proportion of nickel is used in the cells. This means that demand will rise disproportionately to the increase in battery production. Nickel sulfate is needed for lithiumion batteries, which is a niche product pro duced from classI nickel (over 99 % pu rity). To meet the growing demand in the future, new manufacturing methods for nickel sulfate need to be developed. The market is highly dependent on the supply of primary nickel from South East Asia and, in particular, from Indo nesia, which is by far the biggest nickel mining coun try. In 2020, Indonesia imposed a ban on exports of nickel ore to ensure that large parts of the value chain remained in the country. After China, it is now the world's second largest nickel producer, but only of classII nickel (less than 99 % purity). Many projects are underway in Indonesia with the aim of manufactur ing higherquality nickel products for bat tery production.

To reduce the world's dependence on the raw material producing countries referred to above, establishing a comprehensive recycling structure will become increas ingly important in the future. Processes for recovering raw materials from small lithiumion batteries, such as those in cell phones, are in part already being implemented. However, vehicle batteries are much larger, heavier and more pow erful, which makes industrializing the recycling process more complex. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), together with Vinnova, Sweden's innovation agency, is funding the Libero research project at RWTH Aachen University as part of the Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM). The GermanSwedish consortium, consisting of two partners from industry and two from the research world in each country, is working on de veloping a robust, flexible and largely wastefree process for recycling batteries. The goal of the project, which began in 2019, is to plan a plant with an annual recycling capacity of 25,000 t of battery mass [5] . The Finnish company Fortum, which is half stateowned, has already developed a process for recycling lithium ion batteries from electric vehicles [6] . One of the pioneers in the field of com mercial battery recycling is Umicore. The process developed by the company consists of a pyrometallurgical and a hy dro metallurgical phase. The initial thermal processing stage produces an alloy that contains cobalt, nickel and copper and a slag fraction. The metals are recover ed in the subsequent hy dro metallurgi cal stage of the process. Umi core's first re cycling plant has a ca pacity of 7000 t of battery mass per year, which corresponds to around 35,000 electric vehicle batteries.

In early 2021, Volkswagen began operations at a pilot plant for recycling highvoltage vehicle batteries at its site in the German town of Salzgitter. The plant will recover 100 % of the lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt, plus 90 % of the aluminum, copper and plastic [7] . The plant is currently designed to recy cle up to 3600 battery systems per year, which is the equivalent of around 1500 t of battery mass. However, the system can be scaled up to process larger vol umes when more used batteries become available. According to Volkswagen, the recycling process does not involve smelt ing in a blast furnace, which would use large amounts of energy. The used bat tery systems delivered to the plant are deep discharged and disassembled. The individual parts are shredded to form granulate and this is then dried. The process produces aluminum, copper and plastics and, most importantly, a black powdery mixture that contains the essential battery raw materials: lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt and graphite. Specialist partners of Volks wagen are subsequently respon sible for separating and processing the indi vidual elements by means of hydro metallurgical processes that use water and chemicals.

"This allows the key components of old battery cells to be used to ma nufacture new cathodes," explains Mark Möller, Head of the Technical Develop ment and EMobility division of Volks wagen Group Components. "As there will be a big increase in the demand for batteries and therefore also for raw materials, we can make good use of every gram of material that we recover." Other car manufacturers, such as MercedesBenz, are thinking along the same lines. As the company explained on request, it is planning a recycling plant for highvoltage batteries at its Gaggenau site in Germany.

(based on a total battery mass of 400 kg)

Graphite 71

Nickel 41

Electrolyte 37

Copper 22

Plastic 21

Manganese 12

Cobalt 9

Electronics 9 Lithium 8

Steel 3

Residual 41

Proportion by weight of the recyclable material in a lithium-ion battery (source: Volkswagen) © MTZ

What are the special features of your recycling concept for lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles?

HOLLÄNDER _ The traditional way to recy cle lithiumion batteries has been using a thermal approach. Fortum is using a com bination of mechanical and hydrometal lurgical recycling, which has a significant ly lower CO 2 footprint. With this technol ogy, the ability to separate different metals is also much better and a much larger proportion of the battery's active materi als are recovered; in other words, we are able to recover up to 95 % of the scarce and valuable metals in a battery's black mass. We patented our own lithium se paration method at the start of this year.

When do you expect the process to be industrialised, when will there be enough batteries available to operate the plant economically?

HOLLÄNDER _ We are already operating at an industrial scale with our current recycling capacity being about 3000 t per year, equivalent to about 10,000 electric car batteries. Our mechanical recycling plant in Ikaalinen is current ly in the ramp up phase and we have an industrial pilot plant for hydrome tallurgical recycling in Harjavalta. Our goal is to build a largerscale hydro metallurgical plant in Harjavalta en abling us to handle a larger amount of materials in the future.

Head of Business Line Batteries at Fortum © Fortum OPINION "As is always the case, the entire supply chain of raw materials for lithium-ion batteries is only as strong as its weakest link. Battery production can only operate smoothly when all the necessary raw materials are available at the right time and in sufficient quantity. To achieve this goal and enable a rapid expansion of electric mobility, all the politicians and business leaders on an international level must be traveling in the same direction. The fatal impact that minor problems in the supply chain can have on the whole automotive production process has been clearly demonstrated by the ship that blocked the Suez Canal and the shortage of electronic components caused by the Covid-19 pandemic."

The reuse of old vehicle batteries in stationary applications could extend their service life before there is a need to recycle them. There is currently no practical experience on how many batteries would meet the requirements for second use in terms of their remaining storage capacity and service life. In general, the secondlife concept is only suitable for applications where old batteries with a low energy density can be used. In addi tion, issues such as standardization and warranties need to be resolved [8] .

According to the Fraunhofer ISI, higher failure and replace ment rates can be expected than is the case with new batteries, which means that the high levels of reliability needed from decentralized battery storage systems for residential buildings, for example, cannot be guaranteed. Because of the necessary redundancy levels, the number of cells needed and therefore the cost of the batteries would be greater. The assumption of the Fraunhofer ISI is that only a fraction of the old traction bat teries could actually be given a second life [2] .

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