Cathode Material Development Enabling Mass- Market xEV's: A Umicore Perspective

Authors

Dr.-Ing. Paul C. Spurk, Umicore AG & Co KG, Hanau;
Dr. Laurent Gautier, Umicore NV, Brüssel

Summary

Starting with material supply to the Li-ion industry in 1990, Umicore is today one of the leading producers of cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries with a focus on Lithium cobalt dioxide (LCO) and mixed metal oxides (NMC). NMC covers various applications from portables up to stationary and automotive applications (large format cells). The two main development directions over the last years for NMC materials have consolidated around Nickel rich materials and stable high-voltage NMC materials. As a trend, there is great interest in Nickel rich materials in the market, but this comes at a cost. The impact on the cell safety due to the high nickel content, increased dependency on nickel, nickel price stability and finally cycle life stability, which is still far away from today’s low and medium Nickel technologies, have delayed market entry. Comparatively challenging is the development of high-voltage
stable materials. Operating a cell at cut-off voltages significantly higher than today’s solutions results in higher stress to the cathode material. Therefore, the stabilization of the material to achieve sufficient cycle life duration at the increased cut-off voltages is one main development topic. Umicore has developed various NMC
grades to deal with these challenges.

This paper will report on results of the material development of medium nickel material operated at high cut-off voltages in comparison to high nickel cathode material with respect to resulting energy densities, material cost evolution as well as
on material safety.

The challenges to the industry require an investment pace which can only be handled by financially strong companies. The long-term supply challenge can only be met via sustainable sourcing and recycling. Umicore was the first company worldwide to obtain independent third party verification for this Cobalt sourcing framework.

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