Venture outside of Las Vegas and Reno and into the high desert, and you’ll see a whole lot of wide, open space. It’s mostly full of sagebrush and desert grasses. But, in the Silver Peak Range of central Nevada, something else is buried underneath the ancient volcanic rock: lithium.

The metallic element has been used for decades in everything from antidepressant medications to ceramics. Now it’s being harvested in massive quantities, primarily for electric vehicles.

Lithium-ion batteries are helping to pave the way toward a renewable energy future. The technology powers our laptops, smartphones and electric vehicles. But it’s also had its share of well-publicized safety issues. Some say it might not be the answer to our bigger energy needs.

“It poses additional risks because it stores more energy. The energy density of lithium-ion is higher than most other batteries,” said Andrew Klock of the National Fire Protection Association.

Klock said even with some famous lithium-ion battery explosions, he’s not that concerned about the safety of electric vehicles. That’s because EVs and other devices have battery management systems that alert users when something’s wrong.

“My Android the other day told me I’ve got too many apps open. It’s overheating. ‘Shut them down immediately,’ ” Klock said. “So that’s a good management system, right?”

For one battery cell, sure. But Donald Sadoway, professor of materials science and engineering at MIT, said it’s hard to keep large-scale systems, like those that store energy from solar or wind facilities, cool.

“The lithium ion requires safety measures to put in play, so that you don’t get thermal runaway, which could lead ultimately to fire,” Sadoway said.

(Reuters) -China’s Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group Co Ltd said on Tuesday it had signed a deal to supply battery-grade lithium hydroxide to U.S. electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla Inc for the next five years.

Yahua, which is based in southwest China’s Sichuan province, put the total value of the contract, signed by its wholly-owned subsidiary Yaan Lithium, at $630-$880 million over 2021-25, a Shenzhen Stock Exchange filing showed.

Analysts at Daiwa Capital Markets said that value translated into a total lithium hydroxide procurement amount of 63,000-88,000 tonnes, or 12,600-17,600 tonnes per annum.

In May this year, Yahua put a 20,000 tonnes per year lithium hydroxide plant in Yaan city into operation, more than doubling its previous capacity, even as prices languished at multi-year lows amid oversupply and a knock to lithium demand brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tesla, which started delivering the first vehicles from its gigafactory in Shanghai in December last year, already sources lithium – an ingredient in EV batteries – from China’s Ganfeng Lithium, one of the world’s biggest producers of the commodity.

The Yahu deal underscores Tesla’s “huge demand” for battery-grade lithium hydroxide, “particularly in view of the ramp-up of Model Y production” in Shanghai, the Daiwa analysts wrote in a note.

“We expect Ganfeng will continue to be the major if not largest lithium hydroxide supplier of Tesla on the back of this strong demand.”

The cost of Lithium-ion battery pack prices has fallen close to 90%, and rates lower than US$100/kWh have been reported for the first time.

That’s according to new research from BloombergNEF, which claims average prices will be close to US$100/kWh by 2023.

BloombergNEF’s Battery Price Survey predicts that pack prices for stationary storage and electric vehicles (EVs) will fall to $101/kWh within three years. Average pack prices have sat at around $137/kWh this year, 89% lower than in 2010 and nearly a fifth of their cost seven years ago.

This, the report said, has come as a result of rising order sizes and BEV sales growth, which has led battery manufacturers to benefit from economies of scale. The cost of cathode materials has also fallen substantially since the start of 2018, providing developers with more favourable profit margins.

BloombergNEF’s prediction is broadly in line with other estimates. Guidehouse Insights claims that battery pack costs could fall to $66.6/kWh by the end of the decade.

The current price in the Bloomberg report represents a 74:26 split between the average cell and pack, according to James Frith, BloombergNEF’s head of energy storage research and a lead author of the report. The pack price itself could further dimmish “as more BEV specific platforms are introduced,” Frith added.

The research group reported lower than US$100/kWh on pack prices for e-buses in China, but Frith said that we will see the average price across the battery storage industry “pass this point” in a few years.

The proliferation of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used in a wide range of applications has moved the technology clearly into the public eye. Debate about various battery types, their properties, cost and performance have become popular topics in private and professional discussions.

However, most of these discussions tend to put an excessive emphasis on the chemistry of the cells in the batteries. For example, whether a lithium iron phosphate battery is safer than a lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt battery. In truth, battery performance is affected by not just one, but up to five primary factors: cell chemistry, cell geometry, manufacturing quality, matching technology to application, and system integration.

Cell chemistry is considered to be the “tip of the iceberg”. It is the most visible characteristic, but the actual performance of battery systems in real-world applications seldom depends to a large degree on the cell chemistry. More often it is one of the other five factors.

Manufacturing quality is one of the most critical factors, but also least discussed. The cause for this is likely that cell chemistry and geometry can easily be discussed based on the multitude of information available in the public domain. Matching of the most suitable battery chemistry to the application is a topic that can be simulated and discussed with modern computing tools. Manufacturing and manufacturing quality, however, is typically an in-house secret of each manufacturer – and often exposes clear differences between manufacturers even when using the same chemistries. There is little incentive for manufacturers to have details about their manufacturing processes published in any form.

The proliferation of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used in a wide range of applications has moved the technology clearly into the public eye. Debate about various battery types, their properties, cost and performance have become popular topics in private and professional discussions.

However, most of these discussions tend to put an excessive emphasis on the chemistry of the cells in the batteries. For example, whether a lithium iron phosphate battery is safer than a lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt battery. In truth, battery performance is affected by not just one, but up to five primary factors: cell chemistry, cell geometry, manufacturing quality, matching technology to application, and system integration.

Cell chemistry is considered to be the “tip of the iceberg”. It is the most visible characteristic, but the actual performance of battery systems in real-world applications seldom depends to a large degree on the cell chemistry. More often it is one of the other five factors.

Manufacturing quality is one of the most critical factors, but also least discussed. The cause for this is likely that cell chemistry and geometry can easily be discussed based on the multitude of information available in the public domain. Matching of the most suitable battery chemistry to the application is a topic that can be simulated and discussed with modern computing tools. Manufacturing and manufacturing quality, however, is typically an in-house secret of each manufacturer – and often exposes clear differences between manufacturers even when using the same chemistries. There is little incentive for manufacturers to have details about their manufacturing processes published in any form.

What is a “battery energy storage system”?

The term BESS, or battery energy storage system, refers to a system that is more than just a battery. For a battery to function efficiently it needs additional components. A BESS typically includes a power conversion system, otherwise known as an inverter, which includes bi-directional power electronics used to charge and discharge the battery simultaneously. A power control system informs the inverter when to charge and discharge batteries. Additional cooling and fire-fighting systems are installed to prevent and contain any thermal related events. And finally, auxiliary power supplies as well as a storage container are needed to support and house the overall system.

Lithium battery recycling company Li-Cycle now has capacity to recycle 10,000 tonnes a year of spent lithium-ion batteries, having just opened its Rochester, New York facility for commercial operations.

The Ontario-headquartered company started up shipments of recycled lithium battery materials to commercial customers towards the end of 2019 from its existing faciities in Canada, shortly before announcing its intent to set up facilities in New York State. Li-Cycle claims “at least 95%” and as much as 100% of the materials used in batteries, including cobalt, can be recycled using its proprietary two-step process of shredding battery packs and then removing valuable components and materials one at a time through a hydrometallurgy and wet chemistry process.

In September New York Governor Andrew Cuomo welcomed the company’s announcement that it would build the second of two facilities in his state. Climate protection policies the Governor introduced in 2019 include a target for the deployment of 3,000MW of energy storage in the state by 2030 and Cuomo said that the state’s partnership with Li-Cycle would “foster the supply chain” of lithium batteries and “further expand the thriving energy storage industry in the region”.

Li-Cycle said late last week that the Spoke 2 facility at Rochester’s Eastman Business Park is fully operational. The company operates ‘Hub’ and ‘Spoke’ facilities, with Spoke 2 creating an intermediate mixed battery material product known as ‘black mass’ from lithium batteries of “all types”.

Spoke 2 can process up to 5,000 tonnes of batteries each year, adding to another 5,000 tonnes of capacity already in operation across Li-Cycle’s sites. The company’s Hubs then process that black mass product into battery-grade materials and other materials which can be used for other non-battery applications. The New York Hub, welcomed by Andrew Cuomo will be constructed by 2022 and Li-Cycle said the proceeds of a recently closed Series C funding round will help finance the Hub and allow the company to expand into international markets. The amount raised in the Series C has not been disclosed.

The term “lithium-ion” is everywhere these days, but most people don’t understand what it means other than it’s in our batteries. It’s easy to equate that lithium-ion technology powers cars, toys, and mobile phones, but the chemistries in each are vastly different. There are seven different commercially available lithium-ion chemistry types, each with its own unique properties and uses.

Society now relies on lithium-ion to power more of our lives than ever before, but there’s still fear and confusion surrounding the technology and many lingering questions. What are the different types of lithium-ion chemistries? What are they used for? Is it safe?

A battery by any other name

Using “lithium-ion” to describe a battery is similar to using “fuel” to describe combustible gas and liquids. “Fuel” could describe gasoline, diesel, natural gas, propane, and other similar gases or liquids. However, most of us understand that you wouldn’t put diesel in a gasoline engine. Just as each oil-based fuel suits a different application, each lithium-ion chemical formula suits a different application.

Unlike fuels, though, there’s a lack of widespread understanding of the types of lithium-ion chemistries. This lack of knowledge makes it challenging for consumers to make informed buying decisions and increases their confusion and mystery.

Batteries are traditionally named based on their chemistry, like the lead-acid batteries that start our cars or the zinc batteries that power our flashlights. But, when the first lithium-ion chemistry came to market in the 1990s, the makers named it after the unique physics the battery operates on rather than the past’s traditional chemical nomenclatures.

The seven types of lithium-ion

There are seven basic types of lithium batteries on the market today: Lithium Iron Phosphate, Nickel Manganese Cobalt, Nickel Cobalt Aluminum, Lithium Titanium Oxide, Lithium Manganese Oxide, Lithium Cobalt Oxide, and Lithium Nickel Cobalt Oxide.

Each unique chemical makeup results in distinctive properties and ideal uses. These include energy density, intake and energy release speeds, how well they hold energy over time, the stability of their chemical makeup, and much more.

ELON MUSK MADE a lot of promises during Tesla’s Battery Day last September. Soon, he said, the company would have a car that runs on batteries with pure silicon anodes to boost their performance and reduced cobalt in the cathodes to lower their price. Its battery pack will be integrated into the chassis so that it provides mechanical support in addition to energy, a design that Musk claimed will reduce the car’s weight by 10 percent and improve its mileage by even more. He hailed Tesla’s structural battery as a “revolution” in engineering—but for some battery researchers, Musk’s future looked a lot like the past.

“He’s essentially doing something that we did 10 years ago,” says Emile Greenhalgh, a materials scientist at Imperial College London and the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies. He’s one of the world’s leading experts on structural batteries, an approach to energy storage that erases the boundary between the battery and the object it powers. “What we’re doing is going beyond what Elon Musk has been talking about,” Greenhalgh says. “There are no embedded batteries. The material itself is the energy storage device.”

Today, batteries account for a substantial portion of the size and weight of most electronics. A smartphone is mostly a lithium-ion cell with some processors stuffed around it. Drones are limited in size by the batteries they can carry. And about a third of the weight of an electric vehicle is its battery pack. One way to address this issue is by building conventional batteries into the structure of the car itself, as Tesla plans to do. Rather than using the floor of the car to support the battery pack, the battery pack becomes the floor.

But for Greenhalgh and his collaborators, the more promising approach is to scrap the battery pack and use the vehicle’s body for energy storage instead. Unlike a conventional battery pack embedded in the chassis, these structural batteries are invisible. The electrical storage happens in the thin layers of composite materials that make up the car’s frame. In a sense, they’re weightless because the car is the battery. “It’s making the material do two things simultaneously,” says Greenhalgh. This new way of thinking about EV design can provide huge performance gains and improve safety because there won’t be thousands of energy-dense, flammable cells packed into the car.

The mounting challenge of lithium-ion battery recycling should be addressed at the design stage. To date, though, manufacturers have focused more on safety, power density, and cyclability.

Lithium-ion battery recycling researchers from the universities of Leicester, Newcastle and Birmingham; The Faraday Institution; the ReCell Center and the Argonne National Laboratory have examined product design and published their findings in the paper The importance of design in lithium-ion battery recycling – a critical review, published in Green Chemistry.

“To create a circular economy for any material, it is important to have few components, a lower cost for the secondary process [recycling] than the primary process [raw material extraction], a simple purification flowsheet, valuable components, and a collection and segregation mechanism,” wrote the authors. “It also helps when the material has a significant environmental impact if not recycled, as this tends to mandate its recycling.”

Lead-acid
Lead-acid batteries fulfill those design requirements, which explains a collection rate of near 100% in Japan, the U.S. and most of Europe and a recycling regime which recovers more than 98% of the total mass of the batteries. Lead-acid batteries are straightforward in design, with a polypropylene casing, an electrolyte, and two electrodes, made from lead and lead oxide. Separating components by density is relatively simple given lead and polypropylene have values of 11.3 and 0.9g/cm-3.

The similar density values of the cathodes and current collectors in lithium-ion batteries renders a similar approach impossible. Therefore, lithium-ion devices require approaches such as redox reactions, solubility, or exploiting electrostatic and magnetic properties to separate the materials of which the cells are made up.

Lack of labeling is another significant obstacle to an effective recycling regime. Unlike lead-acid batteries, lithium devices show a variety of chemistries and architectures, such as NCA, NMC, LMO, LCO, and LFP batteries, all of which can combine in different chemistries. Cells can also come in pouch, prismatic, or cylindrical form before being soldered together into modules and combined in the pack.