Li-ion batteries

In order to qualify for the $7,500 tax credit, the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) requires a proportion of battery minerals in EVs to be extracted or processed in the US or free-trade partner countries. But a lot of automakers simply aren’t prepared for that requirement.

Electrek spoke with Megan O’Connor, cofounder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a Beverly, Massachusetts-based metals processing tech company, about how her company can help EV manufacturers address this challenge quickly.

In March, electric vehicle battery startup StoreDot said it would produce battery cells that will be able to achieve a charge of 100 miles of range in just five minutes. The Israel-based company has delivered: It’s now shipping production-ready “100in5” EV cell samples to its strategic EV OEM partners and potential customers.

Global chemical giant BASF is going to build a commercial battery-recycling, black-mass plant in Schwarzheide, a town in Brandenburg, eastern Germany.

Automakers are racing to produce electric vehicles, yet few firms currently know how to recycle old EV batteries. Experts at the Argonne National Laboratory, a US Department of Energy science and engineering research center in Lemont, Illinois, are inviting the public to listen in as experts explore the challenges – and solutions – of recycling lithium-ion batteries.

The mineral graphite, as an anode material, is a crucial part of a lithium-ion (Li-on) battery. Electrek spoke with John DeMaio, president of the Graphene Division of Graphex Group and CEO of Graphex Technologies. Read on to learn what he had to say about why graphite’s so important for EVs, what his company is doing to ramp up US sourcing and processing, and what the graphite supply is expected to be in the next couple years.

StoreDot, an Israel-based electric vehicle extreme fast charging (XFC) battery startup, today announced that it has advanced technology that extends the life span of batteries, making them highly effective not only during the vehicle life span, but also for second-life applications. 

As the electric car revolution ramps up, so does the need for critical minerals used in batteries, such as graphite. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, there will be a global graphite deficit starting in 2022, and demand from the battery sector is expected to rise 30% annually until 2030. The US has no manufacturing plants that can supply automotive-grade graphite at scale. Meanwhile, China controls 84% of the global supply. Electrek spoke with Don Baxter, CEO of Ceylon Graphite, about how graphite is used in EVs, the supply chain issue, and how EV battery manufacturers can successfully source the vital mineral.

Researchers have developed a prototype lithium-ion battery that uses water as an electrolytic solution. The water replaces a flammable organic solvent.

StoreDot, an Israel-based electric vehicle battery startup, yesterday announced new patented technology that uses a background repair mechanism to allow battery cells to regenerate while they are in use. The company says the new technology will result in longer battery life and better EV performance. 

More than 1 million electric vehicles are now driving on US roads. What will happen when those cars go out of service? The plan is to recycle their batteries.

StoreDot, an Israel-based electric vehicle battery startup, today claimed that it has become the first company to produce silicon-dominant extreme fast charge (XFC) cells for electric vehicles on a mass production line.

Lithium-ion battery development and production is rapidly escalating worldwide, yet there’s no standard when it comes to battery designs, materials, and chemistries. And that affects the ability to recycle Li-ion batteries – a vital final stage of their life cycle. But this may be about to change in the US.

Zambian president-elect Hakainde Hichilema won a landslide victory in the country’s election last week, beating the incumbent, Edgar Lungu. Hichilema’s plan is to ramp up mining in particular to jump-start Zambia’s economy – and provide the rapidly growing electric vehicle battery industry with crucial cobalt and copper.

This video tells the story of cobalt and its importance to batteries and electric cars.

In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):

• NanoGraf claims it has enabled the highest-energy density 18650 cylindrical lithium-ion cell in the world.
• The US clean energy transition could create up to 600,000 jobs for American workers by 2030.
• UnderstandSolar is a free service that links you to top-rated solar installers in your region for personalized solar estimates. Tesla now offers price matching, so it’s important to shop for the best quotes. Click here to learn more and get your quotes. — *ad.

The Biden administration is keen to boost battery manufacturing on home soil as soon as possible. But in case you didn’t notice, the Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads in Congress on Biden’s huge infrastructure plan. So here are four steps the Department of Energy is going to take right now to boost EV and clean energy storage battery production in the US.

The Cologne-headquartered German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) in the UK is the latest pair to explore how quantum computing could help create better simulation models for battery development. The DLR is Germany’s research center for aeronautics and space.

Because of its name, lithium-ion (li-ion), people think that li-ion batteries are primarily made of lithium and that if we transition the world’s car fleet to electric, it will create a supply problem. While it’s certainly true that lithium demand is expected to rise significantly, which is why the price has spiked recently, the resource is abundant and production can keep up with the right investments.

But it would be a mistake to focus only on lithium. There are several other raw materials in batteries and they each can create bottlenecks if not properly addressed. We will look at an example with a Tesla Model S battery pack through an infographic embedded below. Expand
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