Li-ion batteries for e-mobility – are metal resources under pressure?

Electric vehicles (EV) as an alternative to fossil fuel based cars play an important role for a more sustainable development of the transport sector. Traction batteries such as Lithium-ion Batteries (LIB) represent the vital part of this technology and could face a significantly increasing demand bringing about also a growing need for the contained materials. Therefore it should be evaluated if a strong and fast increase in use of battery materials through EV might pose a threat for long-term availability of raw materials required for LIB production. Starting with the example of lithium for EV-batteries we could show that the contribution of recycling to reduce the need for primary resources seems to be lower than often assumed, especially as long as demand is growing fast. Additional challenges for an effective recycling of EV-batteries are the low selectivity of battery recycling technologies complicating the recovery of certain valuable materials and also the dependency of the recycling rate on the efficiency of the whole recycling chain. Furthermore, supply risks could rise through high demand for primary raw materials as the dependency on reserves in critical countries increases when the smaller amount of reserves in stable countries is depleted.