Case study by GlobalXFunds on THE GREEN COMMODITY: LITHIUM
Additional information
Lithium is used in glass, ceramics and batteries for electronic equipment and, increasingly, hybrid vehicles. It is the lightest of all metals and is highly reactive at room temperature.
Lithium (chemical symbol: Li) is the lightest of all metals. It does not occur as a pure element in nature but is contained within stable minerals or salts including a range of rock types, brine lakes and sea water. The contained concentration of lithium is generally low and there are only a limited number of resources where lithium can be economically extracted. These are lithium rich salar brine lakes and mineral deposits.
Lithium can be processed to form a variety of different chemicals depending on its end use. Lithium and its chemical compounds exhibit a broad range of beneficial properties including:
- the highest electrochemical potential of all metals
- an extremely low co-efficient of thermal expansion
- fluxing and catalytic characteristics
- acting as a viscosity modifier in melts
Lithium Batteries
The fastest growing use of lithium over the last eight years has been in the lithium-ion battery market. In 2008, the lithium-ion battery market was the second largest consumer of Lithium and accounted for 20% of lithium consumption.
The emerging application of lithium for batteries used as the power source for hybrid electric (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) could provide a further substantial source of future demand for the metal.
Given the increasing political and consumer focus on climate change, car producers are looking for ways to lower both carbon emissions and fuel consumption in transport applications. HEVs have been on the market for a number of years, with annual sales in the United States of America increasing from approximately 20,000 in 2000 to almost 350,000 in 2007. To date, most mass produced HEVs have incorporated nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, although many automobile manufacturers are now starting to develop EVs incorporating the lithium-ion battery as the electrical power source for their vehicles.
There are a number of parameters on which battery technologies are compared, with the key parameters being specific energy density and specific power density. Specific energy density is a measure of the amount of energy that can be stored by a battery in comparison to its weight. Specific power density compares the rate at which energy is delivered relative to the weight of the battery, which is related to the acceleration and top speed of a particular vehicle. The faster the delivery of energy, the quicker a vehicle can get to top speed.
Lithium-ion batteries are optimised for high specific energy density and are the only battery technology that can achieve the energy storage capacity required to match the performance of traditional fuel vehicles, without excessive weight compromising vehicle performance. Consequently, the demand for lithium is expected to increase as vehicle electrification moves toward full EVs from HEVs and PHEVs.
