Leclanché SA has won another ferry electrification project, having been selected by Norwegian system integrator Brunvoll Mar-El AS to support the retrofit of a conventionally powered Norwegian ferry into a zero-emission vessel. The all-electric MF Rygerbuen passenger and vehicle ferry is owned and operated by Rødne Trafikk AS, Norway’s largest... Read more →

Li-ion battery recycling company Blue Whale Materials (BWM) will site its inaugural li-ion battery processing facility in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Blue Whale’s commercial facility will be situated within a 35-acre campus including 150,000 square feet of warehouse space at the Bartlesville Industrial Park and encompasses multiple lots designed to facilitate battery... Read more →

Mid-nickel lithium ion battery cells can have a lower carbon footprint than high nickel or lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells, according to new data from Benchmark’s Battery Emissions Analyser. While LFP cells maintain a cost advantage over the majority of nickel-based chemistries, the carbon intensity of these variants can in... Read more →

With aggressive government decarbonization targets and OEM electrification strategies, Electric Vehicle (EV) production will increase significantly this decade. This will require a corresponding growth in EV battery output. New research from global technology intelligence firm ABI Research finds that global EV battery output production will increase nearly six times to... Read more →

Innolith, a European developer of Li-ion battery cell technologies, introduced the I-State Power Cell, a battery cell specifically designed for the most demanding e-mobility applications. The new cell will be used to drive sports and luxury battery electric vehicles (BEV), industrial vehicles and electric aviation. In an official partnership for... Read more →

Nano One Materials, a clean technology company with patented processes for the sustainable production of lithium-ion battery cathode materials, and Sumitomo Metal Mining (SMM), a leading vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of cathode active materials (CAM), agreed to a strategic equity investment in Nano One by SMM of C$16,879,949.85... Read more →

Enevate and NantG Power, two battery innovation companies enabling high-speed charge and energy density battery technologies for electric vehicles (EVs) and other markets, announced a strategic alliance to combine their proprietary cathode and anode innovations to commercialize and scale up a breakthrough silicon-dominant battery technology in the transportation, mobility, and... Read more →

The preliminary final results of the Straßkirchen referendum are in: A clear majority of Straßkirchen residents voted in favor of building the new BMW Group facility. With more than 75% of the vote, the council’s “Yes to a BMW assembly plant for high-voltage batteries” motion was successful. Around 77% of... Read more →

LG Chem announced that it will make inroads into the lithium-phosphate-iron (LFP) cathode materials business in partnership with China’s Huayou Group. In addition, LG Chem will start vertical integration of its cathode supply chain. LG Chem and Huayou Group signed a comprehensive memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enter the LFP... Read more →

Lithium ion battery capacity is set to grow four-fold by the end of the decade, but the industry must overcome cost and quality issues as it expands outside of Asia, Benchmark’s Chief Operating Officer Andrew Miller said at the Battery Gigafactories Asia Pacific 2023 conference in Tokyo. Global battery capacity... Read more →

Li-Metal Corp., a developer of lithium metal anode and lithium-metal technologies critical for next-generation batteries, announced the completion of the definitive agreements for its previously announced exclusive partnership with Mustang Vacuum Systems, a global developer and manufacturer of industrial scale physical vapor deposition (PVD) equipment. (Earlier post.) The signing of... Read more →

Last year, Redwood Materials, the battery materials recycling, refining and remanufacturing company founded by former Tesla exec JB Straubel, announced expansion plans in Europe to support creating a closed-loop battery supply chain. Europe continues to be the fastest growing EV market globally, driven by automakers’ commitments and strong government support... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) has selected eight projects, which have been awarded a combined total of $2 million, to drive innovation in lithium-ion battery (LIB) rejuvenation, recycling, and reuse administered through the ReCell Center located at Argonne National Laboratory. Through this investment,... Read more →

Dragonfly Energy, in collaboration with Aqua Metals, has successfully used high-purity lithium hydroxide recovered by Aqua Metals from recycled lithium-ion batteries to manufacture a lithium-based battery cell using Dragonfly Energy’s patented dry battery electrode coating technology. The successful recovery of battery-grade lithium hydroxide and cycle testing of a sustainably manufactured... Read more →

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become immensely popular as the go-to power source for a wide variety of electronic devices and vehicles over the past two decades. Although it is hard to overstate the transformative effects that LIBs have had on modern societies, this technology has a fair share of disadvantages... Read more →

Amprius Technologies, a developer of next-generation lithium-ion batteries with its Silicon Anode Platform, will host an event for customers, vendors, investors and partners to showcase its expanded production facility—known as Amprius Lab—in Fremont, California. Amprius is increasing its capacity by 10x at its Fremont facility through the commissioning of its... Read more →

Li-Cycle Holdings and Glencore International, a leading producer, recycler, and marketer of nickel and cobalt which is required for the production of lithium-ion batteries, are now planning a two-phase approach to the Portovesme Hub project in Sardinia, Italy (earlier post) to expedite the production of battery-grade lithium carbonate. Phase 1... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced the winners of its first-ever American-Made Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize. Three teams will split a total of $2 million for prototyped innovations to directly extract lithium from the hot water used to produce geothermal energy, known as geothermal brines. Lithium is a crucial... Read more →

Researchers at South Korea’s Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) have used an electrochemical pre-passivation method to enhance the long-term cycling stability of lithium metal anodes for Li-metal batteries. A paper on their work is published in the journal Energy Storage Materials. Seo et al. Ultrathin, large-area Li... Read more →

A joint research team from South Korea’s Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) developed a dry pre-lithiation strategy for the graphite/silicon-based diffusion-dependent electrodes (DDEs) by simply introducing Li metal powder in DDE. The added Li metal powder uniformly and continuously... Read more →

In over little more than a decade, China has come to dominate completely the EV market by taking control of all aspects of the mine-to-megawatt supply chain, says market research firm Adamas Intelligence. Data from the Adamas Intelligence EV Battery Capacity and Battery Metals Tracker show that the top 3... Read more →

Talon Metals, through its wholly owned subsidiary Talon Nickel (USA) LLC, has entered into a definitive agreement with the Department of Defense’s Office of Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization to accelerate and expand the company’s efforts to discover and secure additional domestic supply of nickel for the growing US... Read more →

In June 2023, total lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) deployment in full electric vehicles (BEVs) was up 35% compared to the same month last year, according to data from Adamas Intelligence. Month-on-month there was a 22% jump in June with just shy of 33,000 tonnes of LCE in EVs rolling out... Read more →

Fraunhofer ISI has released a roadmap for alternative battery technologies for the period up to 2045. The roadmap analyzes technology-specific advantages, future areas of application, markets and supply chains as well as Europe’s position, costs and industrial scalability. The roadmap also shows fields of action for the EU and Germany... Read more →

At the recent launch of its BEV Factory Toyota Motor revealed that its next-generation BEVs (battery electric vehicles) will start production in 2026. Not only will they be designed and built differently, they will also be powered by a range of new advanced batteries developed specifically to exceed Toyota customers’... Read more →

Ascend Elements, a US-based manufacturer of sustainable, engineered battery materials, announced a contract to engineer sustainable cathode active material (CAM) for Freudenberg e-Power Systems. At its XALT Energy battery plant in Midland, Mich., Freudenberg manufactures battery cell, pack, and system solutions for applications with particularly high performance requirements for lifetime,... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) will award a total of $16 million to five projects to advance domestic capabilities in solid-state and flow battery manufacturing. Each project represents a collaborative effort between DOE National Laboratories and industry partners to expedite the... Read more →

The US Department of the Interior-led Interagency Working Group on Mining Laws, Regulations, and Permitting (IWG) released its final report containing recommendations to reform and improve the way mining is conducted on US. public lands. The report will inform efforts to modernize the Mining Law of 1872 and related federal... Read more →

OCSiAl, a leader in graphene nanotube technologies (earlier post), has been granted a construction permit for a nanotube production facility near Belgrade, Serbia. (Earlier post.) The new nanotube synthesis plant will be launched in 2024 and will have a planned annual capacity of 120 tonnes per year. The project will... Read more →

Leclanché SA has been selected for a second battery system project on behalf of Scotland’s Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL)—this time for a pair of roll-on, roll-off passenger and vehicle ferries (RoPax) which will serve three islands in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides islands. The contract for two 1.1 MWh Navius MRS-3... Read more →

Turntide Technologies has launched the Turntide Lithium-ion NMC Battery Pack. This new product line offers a scalable modular design with significantly greater energy density in a lighter, smaller form factor than the previous Hyperdrive battery line. The Turntide Lithium-ion NMC Battery Pack combines automotive-quality Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt (NMC) cells with an integrated... Read more →

The US Department of Defense approved a $90-million grant to Albemarle Corporation to help support the expansion of domestic mining and the production of lithium for the US battery supply chain. The funding will be provided by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, utilizing... Read more →

Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and colleagues have developed a novel high-performance electrolyte (HPE) consisting of lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (LiFSI), lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6) and carbonates to support extreme fast charging (XFC). A paper on their work appears in the journal Batteries & Supercaps. Realizing XFC in lithium-ion batteries for... Read more →

Cemex Germany continues to invest in more sustainable transport for its products. The building materials company has taken delivery of two all-electric iONTRON mixer trucks from Putzmeister, which will become part of the Berlin truck mixer fleet. iONTRON is the brand name for Putzmeister electrified products; the lineup includes the... Read more →

BASF and Nanotech Energy, a developer and manufacturer of graphene-based energy storage products, have agreed to partner to reduce the CO2 footprint of Nanotech’s lithium-ion batteries for the North American market. The agreement aims to close the loop for lithium-ion batteries in North America, with BASF producing cathode active materials... Read more →

A consortium of battery scientists, led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), will accelerate the commercialization of a new family of battery cathode materials called DRX or “disordered rock salt.” DRX cathodes could provide batteries with higher energy density than conventional lithium-ion battery cathodes made of nickel and cobalt,... Read more →

The US Development Finance Corporation’s (DFC’s) Board of Directors approved the provision of up to $150 million in financing to Twigg Exploration and Mining—a wholly-owned subsidiary of Australia-based Syrah Resources Limited—to fund investments in the company’s graphite mining and processing operation in Balama, Mozambique. (Earlier post.) The DFC loan is... Read more →

Smartville Inc., an EV battery-repurposing company, is unveiling the Smartville 360 Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) during the RE+ 2023 conference in Las Vegas. The Smartville 360 BESS is a fully integrated, turnkey energy storage system that combines high-quality repurposed automotive lithium-ion battery from multiple automotive makes and models that... Read more →

NOVONIX Limited, a battery materials and technology company, announced that Hatch Ltd., a global engineering consultancy firm, has delivered its report that evaluates NOVONIX’s all-dry, zero-waste cathode synthesis process. Hatch was commissioned to conduct a commercial-scale capital and operating cost comparison study, as well as a high-level evaluation of plant... Read more →

NOVONIX Limited, a battery materials and technology company, and SandboxAQ, an enterprise SaaS company that combines artificial intelligence (AI) with quantum analysis (AQ), will collaborate to predict the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries by leveraging SandboxAQ’s AI-driven chemical simulation software and NOVONIX’s Ultra-High Precision Coulometry (UHPC) technology and extensive battery cell... Read more →

Researchers from UNSW Sydney (Australia) report in an open-access paper in the Journal of Power Sources on the use of hard carbons derived from automotive shredder residue (ASR) as a suitable anode electroactive material for sodium-ion batteries (NIBs). Limitation of graphite as anode material in NIB has paved the way... Read more →

A research team led by a group from Peking University has designed a new 3D carbon monolith, Hex-C57, using 5–7 nanoribbons as the building block, for use asan anode material for sodium-ion batteries.A paper on their work appears in the Journal of Power Sources. Motivated by the successful synthesis of... Read more →

Recycling lithium-ion batteries is difficult. The recovery of lithium of a quality high enough to be used again is complicated and expensive. Most recycling processes are targeted at extracting the lithium from cathodes (where most of the lithium in discharged batteries is located). However, it then precipitates out together with... Read more →

Tantalex Lithium Resources, a Canada-based exploration and development stage mining company, received and executed a term sheet from Glencore International AG for a marketing offtake agreement for the lithium to be produced from its Manono Lithium Tailings Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Tantalex is engaged in the... Read more →

Stellantis celebrated the grand opening of its first Battery Technology Center, at the Mirafiori complex in Turin, Italy. The €40-million investment to develop the center enhances Stellantis’ capabilities to design, develop and test battery packs, modules, high-voltage cells and software that will power upcoming Stellantis brand vehicles. The center is... Read more →

Benchmark’s global weighted average lithium-ion cell price has fallen to $98.2/kWh for the first time in two years, due to falling raw material prices. The dropping cell price is bringing the prospect of a $100/kWh battery pack closer to fruition, according to Benchmark. At this point EVs could reach price... Read more →

Rimac Technology, a leading provider of high-performance automotive technology solutions to global OEMs, has partnered with battery maker EVE Energy. The collaboration will see the two companies join forces to manufacture battery cells in Europe from 2027 in an agreement that will address the pressing need for sustainable energy solutions... Read more →

Accelera by Cummins, the zero-emissions business unit of Cummins; Daimler Trucks & Buses US Holding LLC [a Daimler Truck Group Company]; and PACCAR are partnering to accelerate and localize battery cell production and the battery supply chain in the United States. The planned joint venture will manufacture battery cells for... Read more →

Eaton’s Power Connections business is now offering stamped battery terminals for both electrified and internal combustion passenger vehicles and on- and off-highway commercial vehicles. Eaton’s stamped battery terminals provide several benefits, including greater energy cycling performance compared to diecast or forged terminals and weight savings that vary depending on the... Read more →

Sakuu Corporation announced some performance milestones for its licensable Cypress Li-Metal battery cell chemistry (earlier post) designed to integrate seamlessly into today’s roll-to-roll battery manufacturing process: 750–950 Wh/l Energy Density of active cell area 260+ Wh/kg Specific Energy 792 W/kg Specific Power (@ 3C) 3C Sustained Discharge, 10C Peak, with... Read more →