Ternary lithium battery material formula to meet the revolution

Japanese battery supplier panasonic has announced that it will develop cobalt-free automotive batteries. As the electric vehicle market continues to heat up, its core components power battery is also "rising", the current mainstream battery - lithium battery demand continues to grow. As one of the cathode materials of lithium battery, cobalt has become a strategic rare metal resource due to its scarcity. The politically unstable democratic republic of Congo produces 66% of the global cobalt production, resulting in limited reserves and rising prices, which has become the constraint for the development of new energy vehicles. As a result, car manufacturers and battery companies are working on ways to reduce the proportion of cobalt in the formula for ternary lithium battery materials, and some have even begun to develop cobalt-free batteries, although at present, cobalt-free solutions are difficult to achieve.

Cobalt prices rise as demand outstrips supply

A new report from bloomberg new energy finance (BNEF) predicts an early cobalt shortage, the most expensive material for power batteries, will have a big impact on the electric car industry in the next five to 10 years. Congo, which produces two-thirds of the world's cobalt, is in urgent need of new sources, figures show. Moreover, many oligopolistic mining companies are hoarding cobalt, making it harder to obtain.

"As things stand, it will be a long time before new mineral resources are found," said a BNEF analyst. "if Congo's cobalt resources are all that is needed, a cobalt supply crisis is likely by 2020." BMW group says carmakers that are making a big push into electric cars are aware of the supply crunch.

It is worth mentioning that China, the world's largest new energy vehicle market, is growing faster than expected, and cobalt will be hard to find in a short time. If the supply of cobalt does not rise steadily, the price will rise sharply, with serious implications for the development of the electric car market, analysts said. The price of cobalt on the London stock exchange in the UK has risen by 270 per cent since the start of 2016 and hit a record high in March, according to figures. Peter dinin, head of the metals resources group for electric vehicles, said in an email that the high price of cobalt was a sign of the scarcity, whether or not the politics of the democratic republic of Congo affected cobalt exports.

Panasonic has been trying to secure a steady supply of cobalt in the market, with industry insiders predicting it will use nearly 8,000 tonnes by 2018. In addition, BMW, Volkswagen, samsung SDI, LG chemical and other enterprises are also looking for a stable supply of goods, Volkswagen and BMW previously hoped to sign long-term contracts with cobalt suppliers, but the progress is not smooth. Xu aidong, secretary general of China nonferrous metal industry association cobalt industry branch, specially talked about the topic of end-users locking up resources from upstream suppliers at the international summit of lithium industry and power battery (BBS) held recently in China (qinghai). "To lock in prices, many companies have to sign contracts with upstream suppliers for up to 10 years," she said. On the one hand, prices cannot be locked; "On the other hand, many cobalt miners have joined the 'responsible supply chain' system in the hope of achieving sustainable mineral procurement in the cobalt industry.

High nickel and low cobalt are the trend

Faced with rising costs, battery suppliers around the world are looking for ways to reduce the amount of cobalt in ternary batteries. Many Chinese power battery enterprises are also in the layout of high nickel ternary battery. High nickel and low cobalt, on the one hand is to improve energy density, on the other hand is to reduce costs.

Carmakers are also rushing to develop advanced technology to reduce the amount of cobalt in batteries. Byd now plans to increase its nickel-cobalt-manganese ratio to 8:1:1 by the end of this year, and BMW is expected to adopt the formula in 2021. Such low-cobalt batteries are expected to account for 7 percent of electric vehicle batteries by 2020 and 57 percent by 2030, reducing the impact of raw materials on battery prices.

Apparently, panasonic is more aggressive, hoping to reduce cobalt content in ternary batteries to zero. "We have significantly reduced the amount of cobalt in the battery, down to 3 per cent in the triple battery," said Ken tamura, head of panasonic's automotive battery division. As the exclusive battery supplier of tesla Model3, panasonic currently produces batteries at its superplant in Nevada, USA. In addition to minimizing the amount of cobalt used in battery technology, panasonic is actively negotiating with cobalt suppliers in the hope of securing long-term, stable supply contracts "so that the company avoids the risk of a spike in raw material prices," said jiro ITO, head of panasonic's automotive business.

In early may, tesla announced that the batteries it had installed on its Model3 had greatly reduced the amount of cobalt, while increasing the amount of nickel, achieving the highest energy density ever recorded and achieving extreme heat resistance. Tesla CEO elon musk said on social media that the amount of cobalt in the tesla Model3's battery has dropped to less than 3 percent. They will continue to improve the technology, strive to completely abandon cobalt in the next generation of batteries, change the "blood battery" reputation.

Cobalt free is unlikely in the short term

In addition to reducing the proportion of cobalt in batteries, recycling cobalt is also a solution. According to the BNEF report, the current recovery rate for cobalt is only 25 to 50 percent, and if all the cobalt in passenger car batteries can be recycled, the total amount of cobalt recovered is expected to reach 100,000 metric tons per year by 2030. Companies including samsung SDI and BMW are exploring ways to recycle cobalt from mobile phones and car batteries. But reducing the amount of cobalt in batteries, or recycling it, will only alleviate that dilemma for a while, not really solve the supply problem.

So are cobalt-free batteries really feasible? As one of the important raw materials of lithium battery, cobalt can obviously improve the energy intensity of lithium battery. To replace cobalt, battery makers tend to increase the amount of nickel they use to increase the energy density of their batteries. However, when the amount of nickel is increased, the structure stability of corresponding electrode materials will decrease, which will affect the battery cycle life and safety. Some industry insiders believe that the current car companies and battery suppliers only reduce the proportion of cobalt in ternary battery materials, but cobalt is not yet replaced.

"In terms of lithium battery technology, when the nickel-cobalt-manganese ratio is 8:1:1, the battery energy density reaches 300 watt-hours/kg, and the 'ceiling' can be clearly seen, which may not be broken in the next 10 years." Sun xiaodong, vice President of ningbo shanshan co., LTD., said at the international summit of lithium industry and power battery BBS. Many people in the industry also said that although many battery suppliers are reducing the use of cobalt, but most manufacturers did not achieve 8:1:1 technology route in the application of mass production, as for the time of the market without cobalt battery, I'm afraid it is much longer.

Xu aidong also said: "in fact, the current 8:1:1 ternary battery production is less than 10% of the overall, because battery companies have to consider safety issues while reducing costs." High nickel and low cobalt are certainly the way forward from a strategic perspective, but cobalt is still irreplaceable in the short term, she said. On the one hand, the change of formula ratio brings challenges to battery packaging. At present, lithium batteries are mainly cylindrical packaging, and the soft package and square technology are not mature. On the other hand, to reduce the cost of electric vehicles and achieve development, safety and quality should be guaranteed as the premise. "You can't rush to lower costs." She said.

Medium - and long-term cobalt prices are expected to stabilize

The good news is that cobalt prices won't keep soaring. The latest data shows that since June 1, the domestic cobalt price has continued to decline, and the cobalt price on June 26 was 542,600 yuan/ton. The price of cobalt, which had increased wildly for more than a year, finally came to a screeching halt. Xu aidong said that the development of new energy vehicles and power battery industry has obviously boosted the upstream materials. Since last year, the price increase of cobalt has been very high, which has attracted great attention from the market. But when the price rises to a certain level, the adjustment of the supply chain will stabilize it.

Zi-dong wang, director of the north China institute of vehicle power battery lab previously in an interview with the China automotive news "reporter said that prices have started to fall, shows the effects of cobalt on the car battery is not so big, and the battery is not a" tiger balm "three yuan, he thinks that the lithium iron phosphate battery also has good prospects for development. Luo huanta, President of gaogong industry research institute, agrees: "in the first quarter, domestic production of ternary batteries increased by 63 percent. However, after the increase of the price of cathode materials, especially cobalt, many enterprises are thinking about or trying to slow down the change of the proportion of ternary materials, or taking the route of lithium iron phosphate, and now some enterprises have started to make attempts in this regard.

Xu aidong points out finally, as the development of 3 yuan lithium battery material, cobalt will greet consumption intensity to drop, but total consumption still increases. Compared with lithium and nickel, cobalt consumption growth will slow. At the same time, higher nickel prices and tighter supply chains are also affecting the outlook for cobalt consumption and investment. As long as cobalt prices return to more modest levels, that will still boost consumption. In general, she believes that with the popularity of electric vehicles, battery technology will also see major changes, and all aspects will play a comprehensive role to keep the battery industry developing smoothly.

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