Cheaper and Cleaner Electric Car Battery Manufacturing

A new process lowers both the cost and environmental impact of producing lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles.

The production of lithium-ion cathode material requires a lot of energy and water, and generates waste. 'It has the greatest environmental impact, particularly on the battery’s carbon footprint,' explains Dr. Mark Obrovac in a statement. He and his team investigated whether a fully dry process could achieve the same results while saving energy, water, and money.

Their work has been published in two articles, in ACS Omega and the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. At CLS's Brockhouse beamline, they observed the inside of the furnace during different experiments to understand exactly what was happening during the process.

'What we found was crucial information on how to improve the process to produce a higher-quality NMC-type cathode material,' said Obrovac. He was able to replicate those qualities using a completely dry process, resulting in cathode materials comparable to the best available on the market today.