Lithium-ion Battery Technology

Stages of Making batteries for EVs required

JCVision EV battery supply chain

Raw material processing

Batteries require high purity materials and therefore high-grade sources, as well as significant refining, is required to reach sufficient quality battery chemical precursors. These refining processes typically involve heavy industrial processes based on heat or chemical treatment (typically pyrometallurgy and/or hydrometallurgy) to refine the raw ore into the usual required chemicals, lithium carbonate or hydroxide, or cobalt and nickel sulphate. Adding complexity, certain raw materials are more or only suitable for the production of battery precursors.

Cell component production

Batteries are comprised of several highly specialised components including cathode and anode materials, electrolytes and separators. These components require advanced materials chemistry and engineering for their production. The most complex processing is required to form the battery active materials from the high purity chemicals produced from raw material processing, such as lithium hydroxide and nickel sulphate. These materials are further processed using specialised syntheses to produce active materials for the cathode and anode. The leading cathode active materials for Li-ion are transition metal oxides including lithium cobalt oxide, lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide (NCA) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP).