The lithium-ion battery industry is focused on recycling as geopolitical events pose a challenge to the supply chain

By On May 18, 2022

Recent geopolitical events – including Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Domestic Infrastructure Act and President Joe Biden’s invocation of the Defense Production Act – are affecting the supply of critical minerals used to make lithium-ion batteries, contributing to rising commodity prices. Companies that rely on lithium-ion batteries are exploring investments and advances in battery recycling as ways to alleviate these concerns in the metal supply chain.

“Recycling lithium-ion batteries is an important part of ensuring a healthy supply chain,” said Jeff Spangenberger, director of the ReCell Center, a consortium based at the Argonne National Laboratory that promotes battery recycling and development. “This is a new industry, for the most part compared to many other recycling industries. There is a lot of room for improvement.”

About 99% of the raw and component materials for the batteries are produced outside the United States, and the domestic supply chain is in its infancy. In December, the U.S. Department of Energy released a list of 13 new domestic battery factories for electric vehicles that are scheduled to go online in the next five years, eight of which are joint ventures between battery manufacturers and automakers. Most of the current focus on recycling lithium-ion batteries is on the recycling of passenger car batteries because the commercial electricity market is still in its infancy.

DPA’s stated intention is to increase critical mineral supply to meet the needs of clean energy through mining, recycling and identification of unconventional sources. President Biden invoked it in March in response to rising gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Former President Donald Trump has previously signed orders to also increase the critical mineral supply. Battery recycling recycles critical minerals for recycling in new, domestically produced batteries and reduces U.S. dependence on foreign virgin materials in close supply.

“In order for the industry to be sustainable and to reduce its risk, it’s very important to locate in North America,” said Michael Insulan, vice president of commercial at Toronto-based battery recycler Electra Battery Materials Corp. The company’s battery materials industrial park in Ontario, Canada, is expected to begin pilot production later this year. Following a four-phase expansion, the campus will eventually house a recycling plant for Li-ion batteries, a plant for refining and processing cobalt and nickel, and a plant for producing cobalt and nickel for next-stage battery materials.

Despite its relative novelty, the recycling of Li-ion batteries is expanding rapidly. That’s a good thing, sources say, because battery demand is rising. The demand for these raw materials is so high that recycling alone will not increase supply enough.

“This is an extraordinarily fast-growing market, so the supply challenge is huge – perhaps a bigger supply challenge than the world has seen in decades,” Insulan said.

Rockwood lithium mine in Silver Peak, Nevada

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Commodity crunch

Metals, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, are crucial to the transition to clean energy technologies powered by electricity instead of fossil fuels. Electric vehicles and their batteries are at the forefront of that movement. In April, EV startup CEO Rivian warned of a looming battery shortage as demand for electric cars rises, signaling the critical mineral shortage and largely undeveloped battery supply chain.

For example, Russia’s war in Ukraine disrupts the country’s dominant mining and processing industries for metals, including nickel. And the goal of some funds for electric charging stations in the Infrastructure Act of 2021 is to encourage further use of electric cars; it increases the demand for electric cars and battery material. The crisis is already pushing volatile metal markets to new heights. The London Metal Exchange suspended nickel trading on March 8 as prices doubled in a matter of hours, exacerbating previous rises from supply concerns.

The Biden administration has spent billions of dollars to solve the problem. Earlier this month, the DOE announced $ 3.1 billion in infrastructure law funding for new and upgraded battery-making and recycling facilities, plus a separate $ 60 million that goes in part to developing new recycling processes to get materials back into the supply chain.

Battery recycling “has historically been an environmental conversation,” said Shane Thompson, president of battery recycler Retriev Technologies. “But within the last two years, it’s really interesting to see … there’s this supply chain part of the conversation.”

Lithium prices rose 280% last year and rose another 130% in the first four months of this year, Bloomberg reports. Lithium consumption has almost quadrupled since 2010, and projections show no signs of slowing. Experts say that lithium itself is everywhere and that the supply is not low, but the extraction and refining processes are slow and expensive.

“There’s more than enough lithium to power an electric car for every man, woman and child, but it’s just in such diluted concentrations and the amounts are so scattered … that it’s getting harder and harder to extract financially,” Roger said Lin, Vice President of Global Marketing and Government Relations at Ascend Elements. The company (formerly known as Battery Resourcers) develops advanced battery materials from recycled critical minerals through its hydro-to-cathode process, which it says reduces costs by more than 50% and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 90% compared to mining and processing virgin materials .

Reinventing the battery

Material supply challenges lead research projects to develop new battery chemistry and recycling processes. Some use more sustainable or easily accessible elements and less environmentally damaging processing techniques. The reconfigurations can reduce costs and dependence on critical metals.

Direct cathode recycling is a new technique announced as “the holy grail of lithium-ion battery recycling, because they take the cathode material into the batteries as it is, then rejuvenate and revive it,” instead of breaking it down in individual raw materials, Lin said.

Conventional Li-ion battery recycling involves the chemical, mechanical or thermal degradation of the valuable battery components, which are then treated and reused to build a new battery. This method creates more emissions and reduces the value of the recovered critical minerals by about half, Spangenberger explained, whereas direct cathode recycling preserves the full monetary value of the materials.

Researchers at Princeton University developed an inexpensive way to perform direct cathode recycling and spun off the startup Princeton NuEnergy to commercialize and scale the operation. They separate materials mechanically and then use low-temperature plasma to remove pollutants produced during battery use. The system uses 70% less water and reduces energy consumption and emissions by 80% compared to current technologies for recycling Li-ion batteries, the company says. Earlier this month, the startup announced that it had raised $ 7 million in start-up funding.

Direct cathode recycling is still evolving and is considered too financially risky for the industry to try alone, Spangenberger said, so DOE helps tackle these challenges at the ReCell Center. Lin also noted that a leading obstacle to direct cathode recycling is getting the same or better performance from the recycled cathode.

Other advances in Li-ion battery recycling include ACE Green Recycling’s recent announcement that it will build and operate an emission-free lead-acid and Li-ion battery recycling park in Texas, which will incorporate proprietary technologies electrified in instead of running on fossil fuels. The company notes that the United States currently exports much of its battery scrap to Asia and Mexico for processing due to the lack of domestic recycling infrastructure. Li-Cycle announced that it would use Veolia Water Technologies’ evaporation and crystallization system to process materials at its New York lithium-ion battery recycling plant to recycle nickel and cobalt materials for use in new batteries.

Ascend’s hydro-to-cathode system allows it to decompose lithium, nickel and cobalt into EV batteries and then rearrange the atoms to create new materials. The company adjusts the amount of each mineral in the final material to meet each customer’s specifications.

Electra wants its upcoming recycling campus and cobalt refinery to help the battery supply chain in Canada and the United States. It will partner with third-party battery collection and shredding companies for a supply of “black mass”, a metal-rich powder. It differs from the competition in its use of 100% hydropower, creating almost zero greenhouse gas emissions during processing, Insulan said.

Retriev recently acquired Battery Solutions, which the company said will create a more holistic battery recycling business. The combination of Retriev’s decades of battery recycling experience and Battery Solutions’ years of collection and transportation experience results in a complete suite of services, and “it’s going to play a crucial role in meeting the material supply gap,” Thompson said.

“The more you can collapse any supply chain between the product and the input materials, the more secure and robust that supply chain is,” he said. “I think it’s very important to have a domestic source.”

On the battery design side, Samsung SDI announced that they would develop a cobalt-free EV battery to make the product price competitive. Analysts predict that the cobalt-free battery market will experience significant growth over the next decade. But the design has a notable drawback from a circular economy perspective.

“When we try to get away from cobalt in our batteries because of the cost, it actually makes recycling a little bit more challenging because there is not as much in there to recycle as a revenue stream,” Spangenberger said. “It’s a bit of a double-edged sword.”

Without a solid profit incentive, it is difficult to convince more companies to recycle batteries – in addition to those already focusing on this area ahead of the growing EV transition, he said. The ReCell Center aims to identify more sustainable battery materials and recycling methods that also make economic sense. The dual focus is crucial because “the last thing we want to do is come up with an amazing process that is worse off environmentally,” Spangenberger said.

Planning for the future

Recycling Li-ion batteries helps, but does not completely solve, the critical mineral supply problem, sources say.

“Recycling, for now, will not be enough. It’s just the truth,” Insulan said. “There just are not enough batteries [used] – certainly not from the electric car industry, but also from consumer electronics.”

The industrial scrap of battery manufacturers is another leading source of material. For example, Ascend recycles production scrap from SK Battery America’s Georgia gigafactory in addition to working with major automakers, including Honda, to procure obsolete EV batteries.

“Commodity prices have an impact on what the perceived value of lithium-ion battery scrap is, as well as the prices of the products we produce from our factories,” Lin said.

The best strategy is to plan long-term and predict fluctuations in commodity prices instead of believing the numbers will remain high, Spangenberger said. Like all commodity markets, those related to lithium-ion batteries are cyclical, sources say. They expect prices to remain high in the short to medium term, but then to stabilize and likely fall over time. Insulan says that high prices attract investment and that further investment will eventually normalize prices.

Battery recycling has seen a surge in investment over the past year. Companies including American Battery Technology Co., Redwood Materials, Li-Cycle and Ascend raised a total of more than $ 255 million in one week in September 2021 alone. the opening of a new Arizona facility this week. This investment followed the news that Korean manufacturers LG Chem and LG Energy Solution recognized Li-Cycle as their preferred North American battery recycling partner.

Although the investment inflow is intended to improve supply chains, the effects will not be immediate, sources say. It can take years to realize a noticeable effect. They also stress that recycled materials alone will not be sufficient to support the entire Li-ion battery industry, at least not for decades. Rather, recycled materials increase industry sustainability as a complementary resource.

“Even if we were to recycle everything that was used today, it’s not enough to feed a growing market,” Lin said. “We have to ‘charge’ the multi-metal system and they come from mines,” but mines and refineries can take years, even a decade, to become operational.

Spangenberger predicts that in six to 10 years, the “faucet will really turn on,” and more obsolete EV batteries will be available for recycling. In the meantime, ReCell and other research and development projects will work to make the Li-ion recycling process and materials more sustainable.

“Although we can not sell the product, but we find a home for it instead of depositing it or burning it, we define it as a gain, because then you do not have to deal with it as waste,” said Spangenberger. .

Leading Lithium Producing Countries Worldwide 2021 In 2021, Australia was a world leader in lithium mining with an estimated production of 55,000 tonnes. Chile and China came in second and third, with lithium production totaling 26,000 and 14,000 tonnes, respectively.

How much of a Tesla battery can be recycled?

Equally important, Tesla says it can recycle 92% of a battery’s materials – tons of nickel, copper and cobalt. Fossil fuels are extracted and used once, it is noted, adding that the materials in a lithium-ion battery are recyclable.

Can a Tesla battery be recycled? Tesla lithium-ion batteries can (and are) safely recycled. Tesla is one of the few companies that recycles 100% of its batteries. Recycling is now an economic necessity as sky-high battery demand has driven the price of rare commodities through the roof.

How much of a Tesla battery is recyclable?

Any battery that no longer meets a customer’s needs can be serviced by Tesla at one of our service centers around the world. None of our discarded lithium-ion batteries go to landfill and are 100% recycled.

What is Tesla going to do with old batteries?

The company will recycle 100% of its batteries returning to the factory worn out. Its extraction processes can make 92% of the valuable materials useful again. In addition, about 10% of the material extracted from the batteries goes back to the production of new vehicle components.

How much of a Tesla battery can be recycled?

What percentage of lithium batteries are recycled?

Most of the battery recycling that takes place today is in China and Europe, which have far stricter rules than the United States. The Department of Energy estimates that only 5 percent of U.S. discarded lithium-ion batteries are recycled.

What percentage of electric car batteries are recycled?

More than 95 percent of them are recycled today because consumers can claim a mortgage when they return the batteries, and they are relatively easy to disassemble.

How much of an electric car battery can be recycled?

Both lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) can be recycled, but not 100% recyclable. The process of extracting the materials is still being refined and improved.

Do electric car batteries get recycled?

Redwood is launching the most comprehensive electric vehicle battery recycling program, beginning in California, to establish efficient, safe and effective recovery routes for obsolete hybrid and electric car battery packs.

What percentage of lithium batteries are recycled?

How much lithium can be recycled from a battery?

How much of a lithium-ion battery can be recycled? On average, about 50% of a lithium-ion battery can be recycled efficiently. Unfortunately, this means that a significant amount of the materials in it must be stored safely in a permanent way.

How much lithium can be recovered from batteries?

Recycling processes today recycle approximately 25% to 96% of the materials in a lithium-ion battery cell.

What percentage of a battery can be recycled?

Nearly 90 percent of all lead-acid batteries are recycled. Almost every retailer that sells lead-acid batteries collects used batteries for recycling, as required by most state laws. Recyclers crush batteries into nickel-sized pieces and separate the plastic components.

What percentage of a lithium-ion battery is recyclable?

The industry is familiar with reaching a closed loop for recycling batteries – today, 99% of lead-acid batteries in the United States are recycled. Yet only about 5% of lithium-ion batteries are currently recycled, according to the DOE.

Which industry uses the most lithium?

Lithium has many industrial uses. It goes in glass, ceramics, pharmaceuticals and aluminum and magnesium alloys. But the highest potential for growth is in the battery market, where lithium is used as an electrode and electrolyte material in lithium disposable batteries and in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries.

Who consumes the most lithium? China is the largest consumer of lithium and hoarding is suspected. The Chinese believe that the cars of the future will run on Li-ion batteries, and an uninhibited supply of lithium is important to them. In 2009, the total demand for lithium reached almost 92,000 tons, of which batteries use 26 percent.

What industries use lithium-ion batteries?

Lithium-ion batteries are used in several industrial applications such as power tools, cordless tools, marine equipment and machinery, agricultural machinery, industrial automation systems, aviation, military and defense, electronics, civilian infrastructure and oil and gas.

Who uses lithium batteries?

Lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable and used in vaping devices, many personal electronics such as cell phones, tablets and laptops, e-bikes, electric toothbrushes, tools, hoverboards, scooters and for solar backup storage.

What industry uses the most batteries?

Report attributes	details
Quantitative units	USD billion and CAGR revenue from 2020 to 2027

What industry uses the most lithium?

Lithium has several uses, including perhaps its most famous use, in lithium-ion batteries. In fact, lithium-ion batteries accounted for more than seventy percent of global lithium consumption by 2020, and its use for this application continues to grow as the race to power electric vehicles accelerates.

What is most lithium used for?

The main use of lithium is in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and electric vehicles. Lithium is also used in some non-rechargeable batteries for things like defibrillators, toys and watches.

What uses the most lithium-ion batteries?

Lithium-ion batteries are currently used in most consumer consumer electronics such as mobile phones and laptops due to their high energy consumption. mass unit relative to other electrical energy storage systems.

What are 5 things lithium is used for?

Lithium and its compounds have several industrial applications, including heat-resistant glass and ceramics, lithium grease lubricants, flux additives for iron, steel and aluminum production, lithium batteries and lithium-ion batteries.

What is the biggest user of lithium?

China was the world’s largest consumer of lithium in 2019, after accounting for a 39 percent share of global lithium consumption.

Who is the largest battery recycler?

China-based CATL is the largest battery manufacturer in the world. It has a subsidiary, Brunp Recycling, with the capacity to recycle 120,000 tons of batteries per year. CATL said in October that it planned to spend the equivalent of $ 5 billion to build a new recycling plant in the Chinese province of Hubei.

Who is the largest recycler of lithium batteries? ABOUT BATTERY RESOURCES Battery Resourcers is based in Worcester, Massachusetts, and operates the world’s most efficient lithium-ion battery recycling process.

Who is the largest producer of batteries?

Rank	company	Market share in 2021
# 1	CATL	32.5%
# 2	LG energy solution	21.5%
# 3	Panasonic	14.7%
# 4	place bid	6.9%

Who is leading the world in battery technology?

Tesla is by far the largest customer for batteries – in the second half of 2020 it used 22.5 gigawatt-hours of value, almost as much as the next five largest electric car manufacturers combined (BYD, Hyundai, Mercedes, Renault, Volkswagen).

Is CATL the largest battery manufacturer?

CATL was founded in 2011 and is now the largest manufacturer of lithium batteries in the world. It controls almost 50% of the market share in this sector.

Who is the largest battery producer in the world?

The China-based CATL was the leading lithium-ion battery manufacturer in 2021 with a market share of 32.5 percent. Korean LG Chem came in second with a market share of 21.5 percent, followed by Panasonic with a market share of 14.7 percent.

Who is leading the world in battery technology?

CATL remains the largest battery manufacturer by capacity A recent report by SNE Research from South Korea ranked the 10 largest battery manufacturers based on electric vehicles (EV, PHEV, HEV) -mounted batteries sold in 2021 across the globe.

Which country is leading in battery technology?

China is by far the leader in the battery race with almost 80% of global Li-ion production capacity. The country also dominates other parts of the battery supply chain, including mining and refining of battery minerals such as lithium and graphite.

What is the best battery technology right now?

Today, among all the advanced storage technologies, li-ion battery technology allows the highest level of energy density. Performance such as fast charging or temperature operating window (-50 ° C up to 125 ° C) can be fine-tuned with the wide range of cell design and chemistry.

Who is leading in lithium battery technology?

Panasonic, is the three largest global EV battery manufacturer from Japan, and Tesla’s longtime partner is another major player in lithium battery technology. Samsung, Panasonic and LG are also global leaders in the telecommunications sectors.

Who is the biggest battery recycling company?

The largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America

Retriev Technologies, Inc. (â € œ …
The combined capabilities of Heritage Battery Recycling (“HBR”) and Retriev create a lithium-ion battery recycling powerhouse that leads the industry as a comprehensive recycling and recycling battery management platform.

Who is the largest battery producer in the world?

Is it too late to buy lithium stocks?

The short answer is that yes, you can definitely buy all sorts of stocks and shares that are tied to lithium.

What is the best lithium company to invest in? 10 best lithium stocks to buy now

Sigma Lithium Corporation (NASDAQ: SGML) Number of hedge fund holders: 3. Advertisement. …
CBAK Energy Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBAT) Number of hedge fund holders: 5. …
Standard Lithium Ltd. (NYSE: SLI) …
Piedmont Lithium Inc. (NASDAQ: PLL) …
Lithium Americas Corp. (NYSE: LAC)

Can you buy lithium on the stock market?

Investors can not directly invest in lithium as it is not traded on a stock exchange and there is no futures market with individual investor access. Long-term investors can invest in lithium producers’ shares directly and through exchange traded funds.

What stock sells lithium?

The 5 best lithium stocks that could explode Lithium Americas Corporation (LAC) – NYSE. Livent Corporation (LTHM) – NYSE. Chemical and Mining Company (SQM) – NYSE. Albemarle Corporation (ALB) – NYSE.

Can you buy lithium as an investment?

There are several ways to invest in lithium as a commodity if you are interested in it. You can pursue the shares of companies that produce this material or those who use it in vehicles, batteries and related applications. You can also invest in groups of lithium stocks by buying a stake in mutual funds, such as ETFs.

Is lithium a good investment 2022?

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a lithium-focused research firm, expects a lithium deficit by 2022. According to Rio Tinto, lithium demand should grow 25-35% per year over the next decade. And IHS Markit, another research provider, expects the market to more than double between 2021 and 2025.

Will lithium stocks go up in 2022?

Earnings per share (EPS) in 2021 tripled from 2020 to $ 2.05 per share. diluted stock. These results made Wall Street analysts and investors sit up and take notice. The professionals also liked that SQM predicted that the demand for its lithium is likely to grow by 30% by 2022.

Is lithium a good future investment?

But lithium’s rise in popularity is due to increased demand in the electric car industry. As a result, the size of the lithium market is expected to reach $ 6.19 million in 2027 after growing at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1% from 2021 to 2027, according to a press release from research firm Valuates Reports.