Battery Update

From raw material production for batteries to the battery market itself through to recycling, a new webtool shows relevant data from the entire battery industry.

Prices for key battery raw materials have been subject to enormous fluctuations over the past two years, putting an end, at least temporarily, to the trend of falling battery cell costs. In its Battery Update, Fraunhofer ISI points out which role the design of supply contracts plays in pricing and how the changes in raw material prices affect the costs of different lithium-ion battery technologies.

The need for recycling capacity for lithium-ion batteries is growing. How Europe will meet it - and which companies are investing at which locations.

The cathode is a central component of a lithium-ion battery cell and significantly influences its cost, energy density, i.e. relative storage capacity, and safety. Two materials currently dominate the choice of cathode active materials for lithium-ion batteries: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), which is relatively inexpensive, and nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) or nickel-cobalt-alumina (NCA), which are convincing on the market due to their higher energy density, i.e. their ability to store electrical energy. Our analysis shows where in the world how much of which cathode material will be used in battery production and by when.

Tesla is giving the go-ahead for a new cylindrical cell format, setting a trend that is also being picked up by other cell manufacturers and vehicle manufacturers.

The "BetterBat" research project has released an open-source database of over 300 lithium-ion battery cells from various manufacturers, with continuous updates. It allows industry and research institutions to benchmark battery cells and determine their suitability for various applications.

It is well known that a large part of battery cell production takes place in Asia, more precisely in China, Korea and Japan. However, it is often overlooked that this market dominance is even more pronounced in the prefabricated production steps of battery manufacturing. More than 90 percent of the main starting materials of a battery cell (i.e. anode, cathode, separator and electrolyte) come from these three countries.

Currently, about 50 kilotons of spent batteries are recycled annually in Europe. The quantity of batteries to be recycled will increase continuously in the coming years - and the origin of these batteries will also change.

In recent years, a large number of battery cell factories have been announced in Europe and the momentum is still not slowing down. Just recently, new plans by two Chinese cell manufacturers (CALB in Portugal and CATL in Hungary) have increased the total maximum cell production capacity announced in Europe - i.e. the total capacity of battery cells that would be produced if all the announced factories were built on the announced schedule and operated at maximum capacity - to up to 1.7 TWh by 2030.

The Fraunhofer Institutes ICT, IPA, ISI and the Fraunhofer research institution FFB have presented a study on the development of lithium-ion battery cell formats. It looks at the most important trends in battery chemistry, cell formats, cell production and safety and compares them with the requirements of various battery applications. Special attention is paid to the announcements of the automotive manufacturers, e.g. on large-format cells.