A recent delay to the opening of a BASF battery materials factory in Finland demonstrates a broader issue facing battery materials makers in Europe, the US and Canada.
In the rush to get a sufficiently large-scale battery materials supply chain up and running to meet the fast-growing needs of the electric vehicle makers while at the same time reducing the reliance on materials produced in China, battery materials plants that are components of that chain are being built at great speed. However, technologies that are currently widely used are costly, energy intensive and creating large amounts of polluting waste products.
Deadlines for net zero from transport will be coming into play within the next decade and consequently, the way we produce battery materials will need a rethink.
There are better, more sustainable solutions out there, such as in the case of Canadian-listed materials maker Nano One [TSX: NANO], but they need to be implemented on a much larger scale in order for Europe, US and Canada to have the battery materials chain that they would like – home-grown, sustainable and cost-effective.
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The problem
Lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles require lithium and other metals such as nickel, manganese and cobalt. The latter three are mined, refined and made into an intermediate sulphate, making them five-times heavier. In the case of iron for LFP battery materials, it is extracted from the even heavier and dirtier iron sulphate tailings of titanium refining, which are unique to China.
The process that creates a battery precursor material called PCAM also generates sulphate waste and wastewater. Lithium carbonate is converted to hydroxide, which is reactive, corrosive, hard to handle and has a short shelf life. From there it takes several other energy intensive steps and days to thermally process into actual battery materials.
BASF came a cropper at the early part of that process when a Finnish court ordered the company to delay the opening of its precursor-making plant in Harjavalta until it resolves the issue of disposing of its sulphate-containing waste in an environmentally responsible way. BASF’s initial plan was to discharge into local waterways.
BASF’s Finnish plant is part of a battery supply chain the company is trying to set up in Europe that was meant to supply 30,000 metric tonnes of the precursor material to a large facility in Germany making cathode powders. The ban will create problems for both production sites.
The solution
A more sustainable and cost-effective technology already exists and is in the process of being scaled up. Nano One has patented its two processes, One-Pot and M2CAM, that enable the production of various cathode active materials (CAM) directly from class 1 sulphate-free metals such as iron and nickel metal powder; and materials like lithium carbonate.
“By compositing metals, lithium, and coating materials in one innovative process, M2CAM drives down cost, complexity, energy intensity, water usage and environmental footprint,” said Nano One. “This also decouples raw material inputs from foreign supply chains of concern.”
The battery materials maker’s process eliminates the need to convert lithium carbonate to lithium hydroxide, it circumvents the costly chemical conversion of metals to intermediate metal sulphates, it sidesteps the need to co-locate precursor material and CAM factories with metal refineries.
At the same time, it avoids the co-precipitation of those sulphates into a precursor (PCAM) and eliminates all of the subsequent wastewater and sodium sulphate by-products.
Nano One recently started a feasibility study for its first commercial plant and the design for this plant will eventually form the basis for a turn-key plant licensed into the the broader LFP market.
