Producing EV batteries creates tons of waste, but one company says it's figured out how to eliminate most of the byproducts.
Many of us fret about sulfates in shampoo and sulfites in wine, but I just learned about the awful effect of employing sulfates in battery cathode production. Apparently, the way most lithium-ion cathodes have been made for 30 years results in a colossal amount of waste. Fortunately, I learned about this problem while discovering a potential solution.. In most of today's lithium-ion batteries, these are made of lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt .
Nano One Materials Corporation proposes a better, sulfate-free idea. Its One-Pot Metals to Cathode Active Materials process mixes pure metal, lithium-carbonate, and coating materials in a chemical process to form coated lithiated powders once they are fired in a furnace. This simpler, more direct process requires less energy and capital investment and hence is cost-competitive with the legacy process now and promises to undercut it with further improvement.
Patents are pending, so Nano One isn't letting all its cats out of the bag, but it tells us the sulfate-free M2CAM process takes place in water at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The chemistry is environmentally sustainable, results in no waste, and slashes shipping costs for raw materials by a factor of four or five.
What about obtaining those pure metals, you ask? Depending on the mine and the metal ore, a refiner might crystalize the metal using a process involving chemical reactions, filters, membranes, and various electrochemical methods, or they may plate it out with electricity to achieve battery-grade purity. This sounds expensive, yet in most cases we're assured these approaches typically cost less than producing metal salts—and remember, the pure metal powders are lighter and cheaper to ship.
When might these"greener" no-sulfate cathodes hit the road? Nano One is working with automotive companies and suppliers to create demand for its cathode materials while actively seeking a potential licensee or joint-venture production partner. The company hopes to open a pilot production facility by 2024. For the sake of those 500, foot-deep football fields, let's hope it can stick to that timing.
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