Fortune Minerals Ltd T.FT

Battery Raw Materials - Where from and Where to?

[Allman]

Even when considering current EV battery R&D, many, if not all industry forecasts continue to indicate that a lot of cobalt will be required for atleast the next decade.

As electric vehicles become more widespread, the demand for special raw materials for the vehicles and, in particular, for the batteries will continue to grow. All the forecasts indicate that lithium-ion batteries will be the standard solution for electric cars over the next ten years and so the main substances needed will be the chemical elements graphite, cobalt, lithium, manganese and nickel. Despite the developments in cell chemistry, the proportion of lithium by weight in each cell of around 72 g/kg is not likely to reduce noticeably during this period, according to estimates by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI). However, the proportion of cobalt could fall significantly from 200 g/kg of cell weight to around 60 g/kg. Therefore, the demand for primary raw materials for vehicle battery production by 2030 should amount to between 250,000 and 450,000 t of lithium, between 250,000 and 420,000 t of cobalt and between 1.3 and 2.4 million t of nickel .

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8390110/