Future material demand for automotive lithium-based batteries

Abstract

The world is shifting to electric vehicles to mitigate climate change. Here, we quantify the future demand for key battery materials, considering potential electric vehicle fleet and battery chemistry developments as well as second-use and recycling of electric vehicle batteries. We find that in a lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide dominated battery scenario, demand is estimated to increase by factors of 18–20 for lithium, 17–19 for cobalt, 28–31 for nickel, and 15–20 for most other materials from 2020 to 2050, requiring a drastic expansion of lithium, cobalt, and nickel supply chains and likely additional resource discovery. However, uncertainties are large. Key factors are the development of the electric vehicles fleet and battery capacity requirements per vehicle. If other battery chemistries were used at large scale, e.g. lithium iron phosphate or novel lithium-sulphur or lithium-air batteries, the demand for cobalt and nickel would be substantially smaller. Closed-loop recycling plays a minor, but increasingly important role for reducing primary material demand until 2050, however, advances in recycling are necessary to economically recover battery-grade materials from end-of-life batteries. Second-use of electric vehicles batteries further delays recycling potentials.

Battery cost forecasting: a review of methods and results with an outlook to 2050

“…Market analysts express a growing concern regarding the impact of rising raw material prices on battery cost. 159,160 On the one hand material demand is expected to grow significantly, 161,162 on the other, currently committed investments for future mining View Article Online and refining capacities are considered insufficient 163,164 and recycling volumes will not have a notably easing impact before 2030. 161,165 The studies in our analysis that examine material price fluctuations send less alarming signals with regard to battery cost.…”

“…159,160 On the one hand material demand is expected to grow significantly, 161,162 on the other, currently committed investments for future mining View Article Online and refining capacities are considered insufficient 163,164 and recycling volumes will not have a notably easing impact before 2030. 161,165 The studies in our analysis that examine material price fluctuations send less alarming signals with regard to battery cost. Lithium precursor price increases are shown to have a minor impact on NMC, NCA and LMO-based LIB cost.…”

Lithium-Ion Battery Supply Chain for E-Drive Vehicles in the United States: 2010–2020

“…Researchers from Leiden University (LU) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) projected PEV battery demand based on two scenarios of global PEV stock from the International Energy Agency's (IEA) 2020 Global EV Outlook. The stated policies scenario incorporates existing government policies, while the sustainable development scenario is based on the IEA EV Outlook's more optimistic scenario, which is compatible with the climate goals of the Paris agreement and assumes that PEV sales account for 30% of global light-duty vehicle sales in 2030 [25]. Nextbigfuture writer and researcher Brian Wang published an article projecting global growth of Li-ion battery demand through 2030 based on expansion announcements by major battery manufacturers [26].…”

Boosting the Recycling Efficiency of Spent Lithium‐Ion Battery Cathodes Using a Green Reductant

“…[ 2 ] As per an approximation done for a time period between 2015 and 2040 from EVs alone, 1.3 million metric tons of LIB waste are expected to be generated which has a rough value of around three billion USD if 100% recovery of all elements takes place. [ 3 ] Evidently, there is a significant economic value in recycling LIBs due to the expensive and limited nature of its constituents, [ 4–6 ] in addition to mitigating environmental pollution that can be caused by inappropriate disposal of LIB wastes.…”