Automotive Engineering - December 2024 - 12

TECHNOLOGY REPORT
ELECTRIFICATION
Pure Lithium bets on Vanadium cathodes to save U.S. battery independence
Continuing a common theme among
some presenters at The Battery Show
North America, the CEO and founder of
Pure Lithium, which is betting on lithium
vanadium, framed the company's
efforts as a way to end China's dominance
in the battery market.
" The U.S. is facing an existential crisis,
and that is the extinction of the U.S. automotive
industry, " Emilie Bodoin said.
" But unlike the dinosaurs, we can see
this comet coming. We're literally in a
cold war with China over supply chain. "
Pure Lithium may not be the only
company pursuing lithium metal technology
as an alternative to lithium ion
batteries, but it is a vertically integrated
one that is able to handle everything
from material sourcing to manufacturing
the lithium anodes and vanadium
cathodes that power its products.
Bodoin, who founded the company
with noted battery expert Donald
Sadoway - who also started liquid battery
company Ambri - said Pure
Lithium has already secured enough
material to power 50 million EVs.
She asserted that the battery industry
is overdue for a new chemistry, as
the only two that have been commercialized
for gigawatt scale are lead
acid and lithium ion. She said that resalt
electrolysis, Bodoin said, but that
has drawbacks such as releasing chlorine
gas and halide salts due to its pure
lithium chloride feedstock. It results in
an ingot, which also proved problematic
because it couldn't be extruded to be
thin enough to be effective.
Pure Lithium's solution?
Pure Lithium cofounder and CEO Emilie Bodoin
refers to the company's lithium-vanadium
technology as the " holy grail of energy storage. "
placing graphite - 77% of which
comes from China - cuts the weight
and volume of a battery by 50%. " So,
we have at least twice the capacity,
half of the weight, and our battery
eliminates graphite, nickel, cobalt, and
dependence on China. "
The hurdle the company faced was
how to manufacture lithium vanadium
cells. Others have tried using molten
Electrodeposition, which is how copper,
nickel and other metals are made.
" We take a proprietary membrane that
blocks water and conducts lithium, and
we take lithium brine, aqueous sources
of lithium, and we put it into our reactor,
and we electroplate a perfect lithium
metal electrode that's lithium on
copper that can go directly into the
battery in one step, " she said.
Bodoin claims the result is drastically
reduced cost, even compared to lithium-ion
tech. Lithium metal from extrusion
is about $3,650 per kWh. Lithiumion
batteries in America are about
$100/kWh. Pure Lithium's electrodeposition
process makes the batteries for
$15/kWh. Bodoin also said the company
cut the time from acquiring minerals to
completing the battery from about 547
days to just 48 hours. She said that
translates to big cost and greenhousegas
reductions for the process.
Bodoin's most emphatic point, perhaps,
was the safety advantages of
Pure Lithium's technology. Compared
to the NMC chemistry of most lithiumion
batteries, lithium vanadium batteries
don't face the same thermal runaway
problems. " Vanadium oxide itself
is stable up to 1,800 degrees C, " she
said. " That's enough of a temperature
difference that means we don't have to
worry about that, " even though some
additive materials lower that threshold
to 700 C.
Earlier this year, Yahoo! News reThe
lithium-vanadium battery being developed by Pure Lithium could help solve the problem of
thermal runaway in EV batteries.
12 December 2024
ported that Pure Lithium entered an
agreement with E3 Lithium out of
Alberta to complete design and preproduction
work to create an " economic
assessment of a commercial
lithium metal battery. "
Chris Clonts
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
FROM TOP: CHRIS CLONTS; PURE LITHIUM
Automotive Engineering - December 2024

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