Albemarle loses more than $1 billion on falling lithium prices
The results underscore the supply glut engulfing the entire lithium industry amid oversupply from China.
Researchers from Germany’s Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg, known by its initials ZSW, just launched the ZellkoBatt, a project aimed at optimizing large-format lithium-ion cells for automotive applications, while cutting the costs of components as well as manufacturing processes.
In a press release, the scientists said they will apply the results of their efforts to ZSW’s pilot production line, a research lab that has been up and running since 2014 under factory-like conditions. The resultant machines and processes will then be ramped up for mass manufacturing.
The German Ministry of Education and Research is funding the project with €12.7 million over two years
The idea is to build bridges between working prototypes and industrial mass manufacturing in domestic factories.
“Electric mobility is going to significantly change the automotive supplier industry,” Margret Wohlfahrt-Mehrens, who heads accumulator research at ZSW, said in a statement. “We have to do everything in our power to fast-track the development and production of battery systems to future-proof Germany as an auto-making nation.
With the ZellkoBatt project, we are extending our technological infrastructure to accelerate the transfer of innovative battery cells to industrial mass manufacturing.”
According to Wohlfahrt-Mehrens, the project should help the country move beyond pilot manufacturing lines and small production runs, establish manufacturing capacity and meet the growing demand for batteries, particularly taking into account that the government has set the goal of increasing the electric vehicle count to up to 10 million by 2030.
