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Cobalt prices went ballistic in 2017 with the metal quoted on the LME ending the year at $75,500, a 129% annual surge sparked by intensifying supply fears and an expected demand spike from battery markets. Measured from its record low hit in February 2016, the metal is more than $50,000 more expensive.
Given these lofty levels – and considering that the volatile commodity topped $100,000 a tonne a decade ago – battery makers and energy storage researchers have been working hard to find a substitute for cobalt, or at least reduce the required loading.
Now that breakthrough may just have been made.
Backed by the US Department of Energy, researchers at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering led by professor of materials science and engineering Christopher Wolverton, have developed a lithium battery which replaces cobalt with iron (iron ore was priced at $76 a tonne on Thursday).
“That means that your phone could last eight times longer or your car could drive eight times farther”
Northwestern in partnership with the Argonne National Laboratory created a rechargeable lithium-iron-oxide battery that’s not only much cheaper but can also cycle more lithium ions than its common lithium-cobalt-oxide counterpart, technology that has been on the market for 20 years:
“Because there is only one lithium ion per one cobalt, that limits of how much charge can be stored. What’s worse is that current batteries in your cell phone or laptop typically only use half of the lithium in the cathode.”
The [Northwestern] fully rechargeable battery starts with four lithium ions, instead of one. The current reaction can reversibly exploit one of these lithium ions, significantly increasing the capacity beyond today’s batteries. But the potential to cycle all four back and forth by using both iron and oxygen to drive the reaction is tantalizing.
“Four lithium ions for each metal — that would change everything,” Wolverton said. “That means that your phone could last eight times longer or your car could drive eight times farther. If battery-powered cars can compete with or exceed gasoline-powered cars in terms of range and cost, that will change the world.”
According to the institution’s website Wolverton has filed a provisional patent for the battery and he and his team “plan to explore other compounds where this strategy could work.”
Of course, the lab is a long way from the road but vehicle makers are spending tens of billions to push into into battery-powered vehicles and autonomous-driving systems.
Cobalt briquettes, Nikkelverk, Norway. Image: Glencore
While demand for lithium, copper, nickel and specialty metals will also increase with the global shift away from internal combustion engines to an electric vehicle market automakers have expressed the deepest concerns about the supply chain for cobalt.
Annual production of the raw material is only around 100,000 tonnes with the bulk coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where fears about political instability and the challenges of ethical sourcing combine to supercharge supply concerns.
According to S&P Global today six of the top 10 cobalt mines are in the DRC. Due primarily to Chinese investment by 2022 the central African nation will host the nine largest cobalt producers. Primary cobalt mines are scarce – 90% of global production is as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining.
In December luxury vehicle maker BMW said its needs for car-battery raw materials such as cobalt and lithium will grow 10-fold by 2025 and that it had been surprised at just how quickly demand is accelerating. Automakers including world number two Volkswagen have been scrambling to secure long term supply contracts, with little success.
Other players are also seeing opportunity in the cobalt market.
“It’s a way for investors to speculate on the price of cobalt, plain and simple”
Canada’s Cobalt 27 Capital has been successful in raising additional funds to build its cobalt stockpiles since listing in June last year providing “a way for investors to speculate on the price of cobalt, plain and simple” according to the Toronto-based company’s CEO. Reuters this week reported that just two firms apparently control at least 80% of cobalt stockpiles in LME warehouses around the world although the impact on the broader market could be limited given that inventories have dwindled to a mere 580 tonnes in another sign of how tight the market has become.
Top cobalt miner Glencore in December announced it’s restarting production at its Katanga copper and cobalt mine in the DRC and recently commissioned a study to measure the impact of the booming EV and energy storage market would have on mining.
Based on an EV market share of less than 32% in 2030, forecast metal requirements are roughly 4.1m tonnes of additional copper (18% of 2016 supply). The move away from gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles would need 56% more nickel production or 1.1m tonnes compared to 2016 and cobalt supply would have to triple to 314,000 tonnes.
Katanga copper mine in Democratic Republic of the Congo. Image: Glencore
12 Comments
Andy JD
Thanks to Frik Els for highlighting this news from the science sector.
I usually check back such science informations with the source literature (Nature Energy 2, 963–971 (2017); “Enabling the high capacity of lithium-rich anti-fluorite lithium iron oxide by simultaneous anionic and cationic redox”) as a first thing to do.
In this case the backchecking has given following results:
– Of the four lithium atoms only two can be used for charging and discharging in a reversible manner.
– The first results with reversible charging and discharging cycles seem to indicate that the capacity fades rapidly in the first five cycles.
Meaning there are still questions to resolve.
Nevertheless the group from Northwestern University has done a formidable job, showing that the lithium Ion battery is far from being fully researched and more developments will come upon us. From this research we may expect a doubling of battery capacity, if the charging and discharging cycles can be organized reversibly without significantly lowering capacity.
Included a scan from the original literature showing the charging and discharging cycles for two lithium atoms yielding a voltage difference of 2.5 Volts.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d0e53653c8525df9c36201708b8edd9f7e6bf48bbcc74295e7858857aea00e72.jpg
Mike
Check out http://www.lixivia-inc.com, it looks like they have some interesting tech to harvest cobalt.
Andy Whitten
It looks like they have lots of lofty claims; those of us who have been in the mining industry for decades have grown accustomed to reading and hearing such claims. When presented in such vague terms as on their website, it’s normally a lot more smoke and mirrors than real fire. Or, they’re looking for a ton of money to fund their reserach project that is more of a conceptual idea than a developed process.
Bigim
Lots of assumptions in the title. This is just in a lab and is not commercially available. Good luck with your research..
For now , we need to stick with what works and is safe. Not some pipe dream
Albert
I have read what they have in their university website. This is only computation findings. It is not even tested in experiments.
This is just here to attract fundings for their project.
JamesB
There are many battery technologies being tested or developed in laboratories.
For example, from Toyota
“Lithium-ion batteries are the undisputed top dog of the battery world at the moment, but magnesium-ion devices have the potential to steal the crown – if scientists can crack the problem of finding an efficient electrolyte. Now a collaboration between Berkeley Lab, MIT and Argonne National Laboratory has developed a solid-state material that appears to be one of the fastest conductors of magnesium-ions, which could lead to safer and more efficient batteries”
Most of these are going to take years to develop.
s dykes
Interesting.
Tremendous advances being made in battery technology especially in 2017.
Use of iron is just one of many lines of investigations. One should also look at the recent work in
the use of molybdenum, especially the studies involving molybdenum in
combination with reduced graphene oxide. Numerous studies published in past
year show using molybdenum in combination with graphene/graphite and/or with
lithium is delivering several times the specific capacity of current cobalt
based batteries. Molybdenum by itself has a higher theoretical specific capacity
than iron. Molybdenum by itself was having a few issues, these have
been resolved through the mixing of the molybdenum with varies qualities of
graphene oxide. With Molybdenum batteries currently being analyzed that will outperform the current cobalt based
batteries. Its only a matter to time before molybdenum-graphene based batteries will replace cobalt.
Restless Boomers
Tough to be long on lots of things these days.
gman
Interesting article…..check out this Canadian co…nno…..lithium batteries..no cobalt and way past the lab stage….
Valentine Tapfumaneyi
Is it possible to extract cobalt from a nickel slag dump? I have a source for about 2 000 000 tonnes of slag and looking for technology
18wheel
“would… could… tantalizing” more hype from the usual suspects: same ones always talking about the miracle of stem cells or gene therapy, and yet when you turn up looking for better batteries or cancer treatment it’s the same old same old that doesn’t do the job. if alt energy worked, it wouldn’t be alt energy, these would be flying off the shelf
Ayla Lawone
This battery co should partner with EXRO Technologies to improve the efficiency of their batteries!