A Battery That’s Free From The Ultra-Rare Nickel & Cobalt Could Futureproof EVs
By Nicole Rodrigues, 03 Jun 2022
Electric vehicles have taken the car market by storm. With their innovative designs and environmentally-friendly appeal, they’re certainly convincing drivers to move on from traditional gas cars. However, EVs are still not without their own set of impacts.
Nickel and cobalt play essential roles in batteries that manufacturers are finding hard to find a workaround to. With that being said, they are also rare and difficult to extract from the earth.
When batteries are charged and discharged by the flow of lithium ions between graphite, that contains anode and cathodes. Nickel is present in cathodes and delivers high energy density, which allows for further distance traveled by the car. Cobalt is used to prevent overheating in cathodes, which helps extend the life of a battery by up to 10 years.
Companies are looking to cut nickel out of batteries as most of nickel production will eventually come from a new extraction technique called high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL), which is energy-intensive. Besides the high carbon footprint involved, there is a fear that tailings would be thrown into the ocean if unused.
Cobalt is being removed from production firstly for its cost, but there are also concerns of political disruption with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which produces about 70% of the world’s cobalt. Artisanal mining in the Congo also gives rise to human rights issues.
The rise of EVs also heralds an onslaught of car companies turning electric and that would only mean higher competition and more barriers to entry for the electric vehicle market.
[via CNN and Reuters, Photo 103779377 © Jacek Sopotnicki | Dreamstime.com]