TELF AG examines recent American initiatives in the battery sector
New sources of strategic resources
In some cases, the use of traditional raw materials, or the materials most available within a certain geographical area, can help reduce nations’ dependence on foreign imports, also favoring the development of a more solid and resilient internal production chain. It is in a similar spirit that the United States Department of Energy, a few days ago, announced financial support of 5.5 million dollars to support six projects dedicated to the production and refining of certain strategic resources in the country. The financing is part of the broader strategic program conceived by the Biden administration, which aims to focus on domestic supplies of certain resources considered important for the purposes of the industry.
According to the United States Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, the valorization of domestic resources could strengthen the energy security of the nation, also contributing to the creation of a cutting-edge industrial and energy economy. In this sense, as the secretary recalls, the United States is working to develop products made with more abundant and accessible materials in order to improve the nation’s competitiveness. The new mineral sources taken into consideration by this initiative are not only represented by the resources already naturally present on American soil but also by recycled materials and sourcing waste. Up to this point, the US Department of Energy has already identified six possible beneficiaries for the financial support allocated by the government, all of which have in common the characteristic of being based on the use of resources directly accessible within the territory of the United States.
The individual projects and their objectives
One of these projects, for example, aims to create a high-performance electric motor without using rare earths, a group of elements whose processing is always characterized by a certain level of complexity. Another initiative identified by the department has to do with a project carried out in Massachusetts, and which seeks to convert polycrystalline cathode materials with a low amount of nickel into monocrystalline cathode materials with a high amount of nickel.
The other four projects focus almost exclusively on the development of batteries, now among the absolute protagonists in the automotive sector and in the field of energy storage. One of these initiatives is dedicated to developing rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles based on domestic resources, while another project, carried out by the University of Tennessee, focuses on the creation of rechargeable alkaline batteries made with manganese dioxide. The last two projects are characterized by a specific focus on carbon and some of its derivatives, for example, to create hard carbon anodes for sodium-ion batteries or to create some specific active anode products inside lithium batteries.
With their numerous applications in the energy sector, batteries continue to consolidate their role as protagonists in a historical phase of transition, where their ability to power electric vehicles and other important infrastructures, such as renewable energy storage systems, has the concrete possibility of becoming one of the main drivers of the energy conversion underway.
