Products made with Chilean-mined lithium – used for electric-vehicle batteries – will be eligible for U.S. tax benefits, the Andean country’s government said on Thursday.
Chile, the world’s largest copper producer and second-largest lithium producer, will be eligible for tax breaks laid out in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes subsidies for electric vehicles based on their battery metal sourcing.
A new type of lithium-ion battery could help make electric vehicles cheaper, safer, and more sustainable — all thanks to the power of iron.
Yes, that’s right — scientists have developed an innovative iron-based cathode material that could replace pricier and rarer metals like cobalt and nickel, paving the way for EV batteries that are easier on the wallet and the planet.
A unique mix of fluorine and phosphate anions that allow reversible conversion between iron powder, lithium fluoride, lithium phosphate, and iron salts.
BASF SE and Eramet SA abandoned plans to spend up to $2.6 billion building a nickel-cobalt refinery in Indonesia, reversing course after slowing sales growth for electric vehicles crimped demand.
Global availability of battery-quality nickel has improved since the project was conceived, BASF said Monday in a statement. A surge in EV sales has also dimmed in the past year, leading to declines in nickel and cobalt prices.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Wednesday issued new guidelines for its lithium-ion battery industry, aiming to transform, upgrade and promote high-quality development amid rapid expansion in the sector.
The guidelines, following a proposal in May, will help firms scale back manufacturing projects that only expand production capacity, while enhancing technology innovation and product quality and trimming output costs, the ministry said.
Projects built on farmland and ecological zones would be required to be shut down, or strictly reined in and gradually removed.
Rapid expansion of production capacity along the lithium battery supply chain has led to a plunge in prices for products, including battery and raw materials, eroding companies’ profits in the world’s biggest market.
Industry planning and launch of new projects should be in line with national development of resources, ecological protection and energy saving management, the ministry said.
Safe and efficient energy storage is important for American prosperity and security. With the adoption of both renewable energy sources and electric vehicles on the rise around the world, it is no surprise that research into a new generation of batteries is a major focus. Researchers have been developing batteries with higher energy storage density and, thus, longer driving range. Other goals include shorter charging times, greater tolerance to low temperatures and safer operation.
One of the more promising such batteries has a lithium-containing cathode supplemented with nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC). At the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, a team of scientists has recently developed a new coating method for NMC cathodes with high nickel content, which boosts the energy density substantially. The cathode is the positively charged battery component that supplies lithium ions that shuffle between it and the battery’s negatively charged electrode, called the anode, during cycling.
The repeated charging of batteries under conditions of high voltage and rapid recharge leads to structural instability and breakdown over time. To overcome the problem, Argonne scientists developed a new coating that allows the cathode particles to withstand the fracturing in their crystalline structure that had previously occurred upon cycling. They call this material “epitaxial entropy-assisted coating,” or EEC for short. According to Xu, “entropy assistance” ensures that the coating helps to prevent the breakdown of the material beneath it due to a thermodynamic effect, which leads materials to naturally become destabilized over time.
Chilean state miner Codelco and the world’s No. 2 lithium producer SQM struck a pivotal deal on Friday over a joint venture that will reshape the Andean country’s lithium sector and give the state a front-line role in developing the key electric vehicle battery metal.
The new entity will let SQM boost output through 2060 in the Salar de Atacama, one of the world’s most prized areas for extracting lithium.
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, visiting Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk, left, meets with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, Sunday, April 28, 2024. Musk met with a top government leader in the Chinese capital Sunday, just as the nation’s carmakers are showing off their latest electric vehicle models at the Beijing auto show. (Wang Ye/Xinhua via AP)
The U.S. and the Philippines are in discussions over ways to prevent China from dominating nickel processing in the Southeast Asian nation, a key supplier of the metal that’s crucial for electric vehicle batteries.
One measure under consideration is a trilateral arrangement through which the Philippines would supply raw nickel material, the U.S. would provide financing, and a third country such as Japan, South Korea or Australia would offer the technology required for smelting and refining, according to people familiar with the matter.
President Joe Biden speaks at Prince William Forest Park on Earth Day, Monday, April 22, 2024, in Triangle, Va. Biden is announcing $7 billion in federal grants to provide residential solar projects serving low- and middle-income communities and expanding his American Climate Corps green jobs training program. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Biden-Harris Administration celebrated Earth Day on Monday. They announced $7 billion in solar grants that could make the upfront cost of installing residential rooftop solar panels low-cost or free for low-income neighborhoods. The money will be distributed to 60 different nonprofit, state, city, and Tribal agencies.
India is in talks with several countries seeking partnerships for technical help on lithium processing, said four sources familiar with the matter, to bolster its nascent lithium mining and electric vehicle industries and avoid relying on China.
India’s Ministry of Mines began discussions with Australia and the United States last year, said the four sources, two from India’s government and two industry participants. The Indian government and some private companies have also sought help from Bolivia, Britain, Japan, and South Korea, said the sources, who did not wish to be identified as the discussions were not public.
TMC the metals company Inc. announced on April 23 that the world’s first nickel sulphate derived exclusively from seafloor polymetallic nodules has been recovered. The sulphate was generated during bench-scale testing of a hydrometallurgical flowsheet in partnership with SGS Canada.
Undertaken on samples of nickel-cobalt-copper matte produced by TMC in 2021, the extractive metallurgy team at SGS tested TMC’s flowsheet that processes high-grade nickel matte directly to nickel sulphate without making nickel metal. The process produces fertilizer by-products instead of solid waste or tailings.
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