In order to meet growing demand for lithium ore, the global lithium industry will require at least $10–12 billion in investments over the next decade — primarily due to rising demand for plug-in electric vehicles — the Chile-based lithium mining firm SQM has reported.

Relating to those figures, the senior commercial vice president at SQM, Daniel Jimenez, also noted that lithium demand was expected to grow by a further 600,000–800,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent over just the next 10 years or so.

Those comments were made at the recent Metal Bulletin Battery Materials Conference in Shanghai, and represent a substantial increase in (projected) demand.

Reuters provides some further information: “SQM’s projection is based on typical greenfield capital expenditure per tonne of lithium carbonate equivalent, he adds, noting that the industry has historically underestimated lithium demand and over-estimated supply.

“Company currently has annual lithium carbonate production capacity of 48,000 tonnes in Chile, which it will expand to 70,000 tonnes this year and to 100,000 tonnes next year, Jimenez says.”

This news follows on the recent announcement that authorities in Chile have approved $754 million in new lithium mining investments in the country.

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – At least 12 lithium and six cobalt transactions have been closed between downstream manufacturers and mining companies since 2016, signalling a changing trend in procurement strategy.

This, commodity research consultancy Roskill said in a statement on Friday, shows that the lithium-ion (Li-ion) industry has developed rapidly in recent years with the advent of mass-produced electric vehicles, with predictions that the industry’s requirement for lithium and graphite could increase fivefold within the next decade.

Demand for other materials, like nickel and cobalt, are expected to increase ninefold and fourfold, respectively, reflecting changes in the cathode chemistry.

There is now a significant wave of interest in battery raw material supply security, mainly from Asia, to underpin the growth of Li-ion battery production over the next decade, Roskill noted.

“With an increasing amount of Li-ion battery raw material refining and processing centred in China, and it being front-and-centre of Li-ion demand growth, Chinese Li-ion value chain participants have turned to Australia, Africa and South America to secure the feedstock necessary for their downstream requirements,” the consultancy said on Friday.

While some cathode manufacturers, battery makers and even automotive original-equipment manufacturers, closed or tried to close several lithium supply deals in 2017, cobalt- and nickel-related transactions seem to be taking over this year, perhaps with the realisation that future cobalt and nickel supply is not as secure as lithium and graphite supply.

“The recent spree of deals by Korean companies suggests they are now becoming aware, and while Japan has only dabbled to-date, it may be next; meanwhile European automakers have been hot on raw material [reports] but have yet to strike an agreement.”

Cobalt is a critical component in the cathodes for lithium-ion batteries because it provides the physical structure they need to operate properly. But most of the cobalt used today is mined in the Congo, often by children. Fossil fuel advocates have seized on that fact to attack electric cars, even as they continue to poison the atmosphere with the waste products of their fuels. As the demand for lithium-ion batteries has increased, so has the price of cobalt.

Now researchers at the University of California – Berkeley have found a way to create disordered cathodes that use metals other than cobalt — such as manganese — in their cathodes. Not only are other metals far less expensive than cobalt, the new cathodes have 50% more capacity. “We’ve opened up a new chemical space for battery technology,” says Gerbrand Ceder, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Berkeley. “For the first time we have a really cheap element that can do a lot of electron exchange in batteries. To deal with the resource issue of cobalt, you have to go away from this layeredness in cathodes. Disordering cathodes has allowed us to play with a lot more of the periodic table.”

Ceder is the senior author of a report published this month in the journal Nature. The research was conducted by scientists at UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab, Argonne National Lab, MIT, and UC Santa Cruz.

Ceder and his colleagues have been working on disordered cathodes since 2014. Using a process called fluorine doping, the scientists incorporated a large amount of manganese in the cathode. Having more manganese ions with the proper charge allows the cathodes to hold more lithium ions, thus increasing the battery’s capacity, according to a report in Science Daily.

Cathode performance is measured in energy per unit weight, called watt-hours per kilogram. The disordered manganese cathodes approached 1,000 watt-hours per kilogram. Typical lithium-ion cathodes are in the range of 500-700 watt-hours per kilogram. “In the world of batteries, this is a huge improvement over conventional cathodes,” says co-author Jinhyuk Lee.

According to the new market research report “Battery Energy Storage System Market by Element (Battery, Hardware), Battery Type (Lithium-Ion, Advanced Lead Acid, Flow Batteries, Sodium Sulfur), Connection Type (On-Grid And Off-Grid), Ownership, Application, and Geography – Global Forecast to 2023“, published by MarketsandMarkets™, the market is expected to grow from USD 1.98  Billion in 2018 to reach USD 8.54 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 33.9% between 2018 and 2023. Factors that are driving the growth of the market include the increasing demand for grid-connected solutions, high demand for the lithium-ion technology in the renewable energy industry, and declining prices of lithium-ion batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries to hold largest size of the battery energy storage system market throughout the forecast period

The lithium-ion batteries have a long lifespan of 5-15 years, and up to 98% efficiency (i.e., only 2% of electrical charge is lost during use). The lithium-ion batteries have very high energy and power densities, which leads to lower weight with low standby losses, and high life expectancy. Lithium-ion batteries continue to hold a large size of the battery energy storage system market owing to its features such as high energy density, self-discharge capability, low maintenance requirement, less weight, and high life expectancy.

Utility-owned battery energy storage system held a major share of the market in 2017

The utility-owned ownership type held the major share of the battery energy storage system market in 2017. The ability of the utility-owned battery energy storage systems to manage large energy requirements during peak hours is supporting the adoption of these systems. According to the Energy Storage Association, US, the utility-based battery storage installed capacity grew by 221 MW in 2016. This shows the high dependence of the customers on the utility-owned battery storage systems for their energy requirements.

Cypress Creek Renewables, which developed 1GW of PV projects in an 18-month stretch up to the beginning of this year, has used Lockheed Martin’s lithium-ion battery storage solutions in a dozen just-completed solar-plus-storage projects.

Executing PV projects primarily in North Carolina and announcing US$1.5 billion of investment for 2GW of solar in that state last November, Cypress Creek used the GridStar Lithium energy storage solution made by the US aerospace and defence giant for 12 projects in communities served by Brunswick Electric Membership Corporation.

The electric cooperative has 94,390 meters in place and around 160 employees, with only around 13 consumers per mile of line, according to its figures. Adding solar-plus-storage at communities in Brunswick, Columbus, Robeson and Bladen Counties, North Carolina, will reduce peak electricity costs and create dispatchable solar resources.

Totalling 12MWh, the projects were first reported by Energy-Storage.News last summer as work began, when original developer United Renewable Energy (URE) signed PPAs with the co-op. Cypress Creek since acquired them from URE.

“This collaboration will provide significant value to our members for years to come,” CEO and general manager of Brunswick EMC corporation Don Hughes said.

Lockheed Martin began its push into stationary energy storage for grid and renewables applications in mid-2016, with company representatives telling Energy-Storage.News at the time that this marked a long-term investment in energy storage. This later included the commercial launch of flow battery products at the beginning of this year.

If you thought the energy storage market was all steamed up, fasten your seatbelt. A new research breakthrough from the University of Illinois at Chicago finally delivers some good news for fans of lithium-air technology, which energy storage researchers have been talking up as the next best thing to follow today’s gold standard, lithium-ion.

How much is next best? Lithium air is described as the lightest and most efficient energy storage technology available. Lithium air batteries could deliver five to ten times the energy density of lithium ion batteries — if someone could figure out how to get them to work.

Why Lithium-Air Energy Storage Is So Hard

Lithium air energy storage happens when lithium combines with oxygen in the air to form lithium peroxide, and back again. In other words, lithium peroxide is created when the battery discharges, and then broken back down into lithium and oxygen when the battery is charged.

Until now, though, the term “lithium-air” has been a bit of a misnomer. That’s because lithium-air batteries as configured currently don’t really use oxygen from the air, they use pure oxygen.

That creates problems when you’re trying to design a better battery for an electric vehicle. Unless you have a medical condition requiring oxygen, who wants to drive around with oxygen tanks in the back seat?

Here’s the explainer from the UIC, which worked with Argonne National Laboratory on the new battery research:

Unfortunately, experimental designs of such lithium-air batteries have been unable to operate in a true natural-air environment due to the oxidation of the lithium anode and production of undesirable byproducts on the cathode that result from lithium ions combining with carbon dioxide and water vapor in the air.

I know, right? As air enters the battery, the byproducts collect on the cathode, eventually rendering it useless.

The energy storage market is continually influenced by innovations and discoveries in the battery metals space.

Beyond lithium and cobalt, other metals, such as vanadium, are emerging as high-performing alternatives for energy storage. Despite limited mined resources, vanadium demand is on the rise as further uses for the metal are uncovered.

Tight supply and strict regulations impacting price

Vanadium prices have soared more than 130 percent in the past year — outperforming cobalt, lithium and nickel — thanks to tightening supply and strong orders from the steel industry, which accounts for 90 percent of demand. Vanadium is also used in alloys of titanium. Only a small amount of vanadium is needed to significantly increase the strength of steel or titanium, making it useful in jet engines, high-speed aircraft, gears, axles, crankshafts, superconducting magnets and ceramics.

Roughly 85 percent of the world’s vanadium is produced in China, Russia and South Africa. Since the bulk of the metal is either mined or produced as a by-product, any changes in the iron ore and steel markets are crucial to vanadium production.

For instance, last year production was halted in part because of the closure of Russia’s Kuranakh mine, which shut due to low iron ore prices and produced no material in 2017. The Highveld Steel & Vanadium mine in South Africa also shut down in 2015 for two years, affecting supply chain structure.

In China, stricter standards on rebar in earthquake zones and tighter regulations on the use of all substandard steels were announced in February. The new rules increase the vanadium content in rebar products to make them stronger. An official at the China Iron & Steel Research Institute estimates the move could increase vanadium consumption by 30 percent, or 10,000 tonnes per year. The enforcement of these regulations is playing a role in vanadium’s recent price gains.

But analysts are expecting a shift in how vanadium is used. With governments investing billions into renewable energy, vanadium is sought after for use in large-scale battery storage systems that can support the world’s biggest renewable energy projects.

The promise of a global electric vehicle transformation has a looming problem.

The cathodes in the lithium-ion batteries typically used in electric vehicles, or EVs, are made of metal oxides that contain cobalt, a metal found in finite supplies and concentrated in one of the globe’s more precarious countries.

But an assistant professor at the University of California San Diego says he has developed a way to recycle used cathodes from spent lithium-ion batteries and restore them to the point that they work as good as new.

“Yes, it can work effectively,” said Zheng Chen, a 31-year-old who works as a nano-engineer at the Sustainable Power and Energy Center at the Jacobs School of Engineering.

The method also works on lithium cobalt oxide, which is widely used in electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops.

“In my house I have about six cellphones,” Chen said. “I have probably about five laptops. They all have lithium batteries. I thought, there is no clear system to recycle and retrieve them. From a battery researcher (standpoint) I know this is something we have to face, we have to solve.”

How it works

The process takes degraded particles from the cathodes found in a used lithium-ion battery. The particles are then pressurized in a hot, alkaline solution that contains lithium salt. Later, the particles go through a short heat-treating process called “annealing” in which temperatures reach more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit.

After cooling, Chen’s team takes the regenerated particles and makes new cathodes. They then test the cathodes in batteries made in the lab.

The results, Chen said, have been impressive.