nickel

Audi and Umicore to recover cobalt and nickel from lithium-ion batteries as they continue to pursue closed loop goal

Vehicle OEM Audi and recyclers Umicore have recovered 90% of the cobalt and nickel from the German car maker’s e-tron battery packs during the test phase of their strategic research project.

Audi and the Belgian materials technology and recycling firm will now enter the next phase of the plan to cooperate on a closed loop for cobalt and nickel materials.

The recovered materials will be used in new battery cells.

Vehicle OEM

Audi

recyclers

umicore

MoU paves way for Australian firm to supply recycled battery materials to Korea

Envirostream Australia, a 24% owned subsidiary of Lithium Australia, has signed a lithium-ion battery materials offtake deal that includes recycled mixed metal dust (MMD) containing cobalt, nickel and lithium.

The memorandum of understanding with South Korean battery recycler SungEel Hitech involves the exclusive supply of metals extracted from recycled lithium-ion batteries out of Australia.

Image: SungEel president Mr Kang Myung Yi and Envirostream managing director Andrew Mackenzie shake hands after signing the offtake MoU

Envirostream Australia

Lithium Australia

Lithium-ion

mixed metal dust (MMD)

Finnish partners promote EV battery materials recycling

Finnish companies Fortum and Crisolteq have teamed up to launch a materials recovery process claimed to make more than 80% of electric vehicle (EV) batteries recyclable.

Power company Fortum said the technology uses “a low-CO2 hydrometallurgical process”, developed by metal recycling services firm Crisolteq, to recover scarce battery metals such as cobalt, nickel, manganese and lithium.

lithium-ion batteries

Cheaper BESS systems 'to rival fossil-fired peaking plants'

Cheaper battery storage systems are less than 20 years away from becoming a "competitive" alternative to oil and gas-fired peaking plants, according to a new International Energy Agency (IEA) study.

The cost of battery storage is projected to “decline fast” by 2040 and global BESS capacity could reach 220 giagwatts by 2040, the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2018 said.

This would see batteries "increasingly compete with gas-fired peaking plants to manage short-run fluctuations in supply and demand"— with the scenario’s projected need for global peaking capacity set to increase by three-quarters compared to 2017.

International Energy Agency (IEA)

Saft recharges investment in India

Saft to invest in Indian rail infrastructure

French battery manufacturer Saft has bought out its India joint venture partner, Amco, as part of an expansion plan under the newly-established Saft India brand.

Saft is to expand production at its factory in Bidadi, Karnataka, including the addition of a new lithium-ion battery line.

Project ‘eyes Indonesian nickel for batteries’

Two mining firms have reportedly started working on plans in Indonesia that could pave the way for launching a battery metals production facility.

Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining is conducting a feasibility study for the proposed project with PT Vale Indonesia, according to Reuters.

Sumitomo Metal Mining

China ENFI Engineering Corp

Chinese lithium player signs Indonesia raw materials deal

China’s Beijing Easpring Material Technology has moved to increase its grip on battery raw material supplies under a preliminary long-term deal with a Canadian project in Indonesia.

Easpring’s non-binding offtake agreement with Pacific Rim Cobalt (PRC) will secure supplies of nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate— just weeks after Easpring unveiled expansion plans, saying demand for electric vehicles (EVs) had outstripped its existing lithium-ion cathode material production capacity.

Report says China ‘well ahead’ of Europe on battery recycling— urges EU to learn from lead-acid industry

An independent report by Germany’s independent and non-profit Oeko-Institut has urged the European Union that, when it comes to lithium batteries, to follow the example set by the lead-acid industry in recycling batteries to create a “sustainable” system for conserving raw materials and reusing EV batteries for energy storage.

But the report— ‘Ensuring a Sustainable Supply of Raw Materials for Electric Vehicles’— shows EU leaders that China is already “well ahead” in having a “transparent” structure that efficiently regulates the use of materials in the electro-mobility sector, the Institute said.

european commission

Oeko-Institut

lithium-ion batteries

Chinese-Turkish venture eyes 25GW battery plant for Turkey

Turkish technology giant Zorlu has signed a partnership deal with Chinese private capital firm GSR Capital that paves the way to building a 25GW capacity battery manufacturing plant in Turkey for electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

Zorlu will invest a total $4.5 billion in the project by 2023 – the year in which the plant is to be commissioned.

battery manufacturing plant

Meta Nikel

nickel

Call for ‘ethics pledge’ from Li-on users

The US-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is calling for companies that source lithium-ion batteries for electronic products such as electric vehicles to commit to using only “ethically-sourced materials”.

UCS’s clean vehicles policy analyst, Josh Goldman, said the use of lithium, cobalt, nickel “and other metals that are part of an EV lithium-ion battery pack, have raised red flags about the poor human rights and worker protection records in the countries where these materials are mined”.

Union of Concerned Scientists

lithium-ion batteries