Cobalt cannot be eradicated from electric car batteries - Umicore

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Reuters reported that makers of electric vehicle batteries will have to keep using scarce, expensive cobalt in their products for the foreseeable future despite a push towards higher nickel compositions. Materials technology company Umicore said that manufacturers have been trying to increase the proportion of nickel used in electric vehicle batteries to boost energy density, while reducing cobalt use to cut costs.

While many electric car batteries contain equal proportions of nickel, cobalt and manganese, battery makers including South Korea’s SK Innovation and LG Chem have recently announced plans to produce NCM 811 batteries which contain 80 percent nickel, 10 percent cobalt and 10 percent manganese this year.

Mr Marc Grynberg Chief Executive of Umicore told a briefing that while the technology was evolving towards higher nickel loadings, it was not possible to design cobalt out of batteries. He said that “If you increase the nickel proportion, you reduce the stability of the battery and so it has an impact on cycle life, the ability to charge it fast.”

Mr Grynberg said that “Cobalt is the element that makes up for the lack of stability of nickel. There isn’t a better element than nickel to increase energy density, and there isn’t a better element than cobalt to make the stuff stable. So you hear about designing out cobalt, this is not going to happen in the next three decades. It simply doesn’t work.”

Belgium’s Umicore, a leading supplier of materials for electric vehicle batteries, including cobalt, said last week that it had raised 892 million euros (USD 1.1 billion) in an equity placement to help fund investments in its fast-expanding rechargeable battery materials business.

Cobalt prices COB-CATH-LON have more than tripled in the last two years after projections of buoyant demand growth for electric cars led to increased consumption of metals used in their batteries, a mix that also typically includes lithium.

More than half of annual mined supply of cobalt is sourced from Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been riven by two decades of conflict.

In the near term, enough cobalt is being produced to meet demand from the electric vehicle industry, Grynberg said, with Umicore sourcing Congolese metal via a responsible supply agreement audited by PwC.

Source : Reuters