Cost and energy demand of producing nickel manganese cobalt cathode material for lithium ion batteries

The price of the cathode active materials in lithium ion batteries is a key cost driver and thus significantly impacts consumer adoption of devices that utilize large energy storage contents (e.g. electric vehicles). A process model has been developed and used to study the production process of a common lithium-ion cathode material, lithiated nickel manganese cobalt oxide, using the co-precipitation method. The process was simulated for a plant producing 6500 kg day(-1). The results indicate that the process will consume approximately 4 kWh kg(NMC)(-1) of energy, 15 L kg(NMC)(-1) of process water, and cost $23 to produce a kg of Li-NMC333. The calculations were extended to compare the production cost using two co precipitation reactions (with Na2CO3 and NaOH), and similar cathode active materials such as lithium manganese oxide and lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide. A combination of cost saving opportunities show the possibility to reduce the cost of the cathode material by 19%. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.