By Kent Griffith
March 8, 2024 | Lithium is however one piece within the complicated and interwoven battery provide chain. Because the US seeks to onshore manufacturing, the panorama for lithium and different battery parts will proceed to evolve. On the current Superior Automotive Battery Convention (AABC), a bunch of audio system tackled the challenges in securing lithium for future battery trade wants.
Right this moment, lithium comes from mine or brine. On the mining aspect, lithium is current in minerals corresponding to spodumene and extracted by way of standard onerous rock mining know-how in Australia. Then again, there are a selection of lithium-rich brine lakes (150–1800 ppm Li) the place lithium could be evaporatively extracted. The most important of the brine sources are in South America however assets such because the Salton Sea in southern California supply a possible home provide. Nevertheless, brine evaporation is gradual (about 18 months) and requires huge networks of ponds which have lasting ecological impacts.
Another technique for getting lithium out of brine waters is broadly identified a direct lithium extraction. Direct lithium extraction applied sciences embrace passive ion-exchange sorbents and electrolysis membranes. Technical challenges have traditionally precluded the adoption of direct lithium extraction; these embrace gradual kinetics, inadequate selectivity for lithium ions, low capability, and poor stability. However one promise of direct lithium extraction is that it may open up new assets that aren’t commercially or technically viable with evaporation alone. Within the face of widespread automobile electrification and the rise of lithium-ion batteries, new efforts are underway to develop lithium assets with standard and direct lithium extraction strategies.
Summit Nanotech, represented at AABC by Sandro Mazzini, is a direct lithium extraction firm headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. Since their founding in 2018, Summit Nanotech has raised $65 million and expanded to 120 individuals. They’re pursuing a direct lithium extraction know-how that begins with brine pre-treatment, strikes the brine by a sorbent that selectively captures lithium, after which reinjects the brine into its supply. Summit Nanotech is scaling up its know-how in Santiago however is opening a brand new facility in Boulder, Colorado, and is seeking to achieve entry to North American brines.
Stefan Debruyne from SQM got here to San Diego to debate the corporate’s purpose of changing into essentially the most sustainable producer of lithium on the earth. SQM is among the largest lithium producers on the earth at the moment, primarily by way of brine evaporation throughout the monumental Salar de Atacama in Chile. Debruyne famous that, whereas mining and mineral extraction is required for the power transition, the full materials necessities together with metal, aluminum, copper, graphite, nickel, silicon, lithium, and cobalt can be lower than a single 12 months of the amount of coal mined in line with information from the Power Transitions Fee. Citing a examine from ETH Zurich and Argonne Nationwide Lab fashions, Debruyne prompt that Salar de Atacama has the bottom carbon footprint of any lithium useful resource on the earth. The amount of brine and water utilization per ton of lithium carbonate equal has decreased from 250 m3/t in 2018 to below 85 m3/t in 2022, with targets to achieve 50 m3/t in 2025, an 80% discount.
To achieve water neutrality, SQM is spending $40M in annual R&D to develop direct lithium extraction in addition to desalination applied sciences. In addition they invested within the French direct lithium extraction firm Adionics. In an effort to extend transparency, SQM has developed superior monitoring networks that present publicly accessible information exhibiting each day or month-to-month water and chemical metrics with 15 to 25 years of historic information as properly. An necessary consideration is that over 11,000 individuals dwell within the Salar de Atacama with about half of those being indigenous inhabitants. Debruyne acknowledged that, whereas SQM is taking water downstream from these communities, the indigenous individuals don’t consider in taking issues from the earth and thus there are inherent neighborhood challenges that require dialogue and compromise.
On the native and nationwide scale, SQM has contributed $3.27B to Chilean authorities entities in 2022 by a progressive worth sharing mannequin that will increase the federal government share as a operate of lithium market value, which famously spiked in 2022. SQM has constantly produced greater than 30,000 metric tons per quarter since late 2021, over which period the value has fluctuated from $8/kg to $59/kg, settling right down to $30/kg late final 12 months.
Andrew Miller from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence spoke at AABC on North America’s position within the lithium-ion battery trade. Whereas he coated the broader provide chain, Miller emphasised that the lithium demand will strongly be a operate of battery cell chemistry. After all, sodium-ion batteries don’t require lithium (or would possibly use a small quantity as a dopant), whereas he reported that lithium iron phosphate (LFP), nickel-rich NMC, and solid-state batteries would vary from 37.5 kg to 42 kg to 85 kg, respectively, for a comparatively conservative 50 kWh battery pack. The dramatic improve in lithium for solid-state batteries stems from using stable electrolytes with excessive lithium focus but additionally from lithium steel anodes with extra lithium, so it must be famous that the precise chemistry of solid-state batteries may range and appreciable effort is underway to lower the amount of extra lithium required if a lithium steel anode is finally adopted.
Taylor Shively spoke on behalf of CRU Group concerning the danger for oversupply, no less than within the quick time period, of minerals corresponding to lithium within the power transition. Shively famous that the complexity stems from the truth that mining provide from new sources elevated, EV demand slowed, and battery applied sciences grew to become extra environment friendly, which has led to a present lithium provide in extra of demand and lowered the lithium value. It will in flip result in a contraction of mine and brine improvement, which can result in one other scarcity within the coming years; they predict the following turning level to be round 2028. CRU sees Zimbabwean lithium provide rising extra quickly than Chile within the subsequent 5 years. Like Benchmark, CRU highlighted the distinction in lithium demand as a operate of battery chemistry. Improvement of manganese-based cathodes corresponding to LMFP and LNMO would lower the lithium demand relative to present LFP and NMC cathode supplies. In response to CRU’s evaluation, the Tesla Mannequin Y makes use of lithium extracted by Albemarle in Australia and Livent in Argentina, which is then refined in China and the US. This highlights one of many many challenges of decoupling battery manufacturing from China, even when the uncooked supplies are sourced from different areas.
