Lithium rush is on as prices levitate

[CHARGED EVs Mag]

Galaxy Resources Ltd, a major producer of the lightest of metals, reported this week that prices for both technical- and battery-grade lithium carbonate in its key market, China, have soared - current prices are up almost 17% compared to last year... Newswire >

[jbfalaska]

Must be a spike of demand somewhere in the pipeline. There's certainly plenty of the metal around. The talk is manganese which is abundant and cheap to mine will replace lithium.

[bonaire]

But, very little "physical" Li is used in batteries. It's not like the cells are "packed" with Li. They use a few grams per cell, IIRC.

I was doing some "near-term archaeology" last weekend. Cleaning out my father's filing cabinet which he had stored work from the 1950s and 1960s. I came across a 1955 document about Lithium. Going to read it and if it's interesting enough, scan it and somehow share it with you guys. My dad was a VP of some sort at Union Carbide, working in the Technology department in the area of materials research. Never got to know him (died when I was 6) but some of his work seems interesting.

[250volts]

Bonaire, I would be interested in the paper if you decide to share. As we discussed previously I work for Praxair which was formerly Linde (Union Carbide) and we still maintain a technology center in Tonawanda off Sheridan drive.

[DCFusor]

Largely puff. Gold, copper, and other metals have swung more than 17% this year alone (both ways). Li batteries are *mostly* Li.
Manganese is only used in what amounts to trace amounts in the electrodes and/or electrolyte, it serves a different function than being the main electrochemical storage element. It will never replace Li, being far heavier per exchangeable electron. It's not like the periodic table has any undiscovered light elements, you know.

The only way a battery will get more kwh/lb than possible with Li is if they figure out a way (like with gasoline) not to have to carry the oxidizer around as well as the reductant. Li-air is interesting, but it's a way off from being practically rechargeable, at this point, it's more like a primary battery. One problem is Li tends to react with CO2 as well as O, and it reacts somewhat with N too, so it gets complex quick - only one gives you energy in any one design (so far), and you don't want lithium carbonate or nitride building up in there and not being re-reduced to Li on a charge. This is most definitely NOT a place where Moore's law applies.

I happen to play with Li a lot in my fusion work. You have to keep it away from air to keep it as a metal, it becomes all sorts of compounds with things in the air pretty quickly if you don't. And that's a major problem with Li-air. If you could feed it just oxygen, for example, things would be a heck of a lot simpler. But even Li2O quickly becomes LiOH on air exposure (no air is free of water vapor), which is just like lye, only with Li instead of Na. That stuff will even etch glass!

[Noel Park]

I wonder if this means that the MolyCorp mine at Mountain Pass off I-15 on the CA/NV border will actually reopen?

[bonaire]

Bonaire, I would be interested in the paper if you decide to share. As we discussed previously I work for Praxair which was formerly Linde (Union Carbide) and we still maintain a technology center in Tonawanda off Sheridan drive.

I scanned the document - so if anyone wants a copy, PM me.

[mikeg3]

Not to worry. I'm sure the big players have hedged their needs in the futures market.

[drees]

I wonder if this means that the MolyCorp mine at Mountain Pass off I-15 on the CA/NV border will actually reopen?

I thought it reopened already, but they are also currently working on expanding it...

[AySz88]

But, very little "physical" Li is used in batteries. It's not like the cells are "packed" with Li. They use a few grams per cell, IIRC.

Lithium is so light per atom (i.e. per ion) that I don't know if by-mass is the right way of measuring it. (I presume that's why they use it for batteries.) I noticed that the article quote refers to "lithium carbonate", and lithium is also only a small fraction of lithium carbonate by mass (6/66 ~= 9% or something on that order).