COVER STORY
PLUGGED IN
Musk launches the Tesla Model S electric car and opens a new free-to-use charging station in London.
CHEMISTRY’S ELECTRIC OPPORTUNITY BATTERY TECHNOLOGY FIRMS are closing in on the huge mass market for
plug-in electric cars, but the road ahead is anything but smooth
E
LON R. MUSK, the billionaire founder of PayPal and chief executive officer of the California-based car company Tesla Motors, took to an openair stage in London recently for the U.K. launch of his new all-electric car, the Model S. During a rock-concert-like event he handed over the keys to Britain’s first Model S purchasers and told a crowd of customers, partners, and the press that anything combustion engine cars can do, the Model S can do too. And so it can. The Model S, a stylish plug-in electric sedan, emits little more than a gentle hum as it accelerates to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds, and it will keep going without a recharge for 300 miles. What Tesla has achieved is remarkable given that most competing electric cars have a range of less than 100 miles.
But if that is the fundamental flaw of other electric cars, Tesla’s Model S has a flaw of its own: its high cost. Owing in large part to an expensive battery, Tesla is selling its 300-mile car for $80,000 in the U.S. and even more overseas, putting it out of reach of all but the wealthiest customers. More than 150 battery developers across CEN.ACS.ORG
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the globe think they have the know-how to solve the cost-performance challenge with more energy-dense materials. Like Tesla, many of the firms are testing variations on the lithium-ion battery, best known as the power source for laptops and cell phones. Others are developing batteries with cheaper ions, such as sodium, or from difficult-to-handle lithium metal and sulfur electrodes, which in theory offer a higher energy density than standard lithium-ion batteries. Energy density, also known as specific energy, is the amount of energy stored per unit of volume or mass. Higher energy den-
TESLA
ALEX SCOTT, C&EN LONDON
COVER STORY
TESLA
sity means less raw material is required for the same available energy, making the battery potentially lower cost and lighter. Although Tesla may have found a niche in the luxury car market, there is a risk that too many battery developers are chasing a mass electric car market that may never develop. With gasoline an order of magnitude more energy dense than electric car batteries and private financing for the sector scarce, analysts predict that many battery firms will go bankrupt in the next few years. IN THEIR EFFORTS TO SOLVE the
technological challenge, battery developers consider the cathode to be the key to battery performance. As ions move from the anode through electrolyte and across a separator to the cathode, they generate an electric current. The more ions that the cathode can hold, the more energy the battery can store and release. Formulating novel electrolytes and replacing the graphite anode with new materials such as graphene or silicon are also options that can enhance a battery’s energy density and overall performance. In association with the Japanese electronics giant Panasonic, Musk has extended the distance Tesla cars can travel on a single charge by developing a lithium-ion battery with cathodes made from a lithiumnickel-cobalt-aluminum formulation. At a reported 240 Wh/kg, the energy density of Tesla’s battery is far higher than that of the nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery used in Toyota’s Prius electricgasoline hybrid. It is also slightly higher than that of the lithium-ion manganese spinel battery used in General Motors’ Volt hybrid and the nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery reportedly used in Nissan’s all-electric Leaf. To extend the range of the Model S beyond the competition, Tesla has installed a bigger battery: Hidden under its floor is a battery about the size of a double mattress and weighing 670 kg, about 1,500 lb. Tesla says the battery for its Model S accounts for less than half the cost of the car. If battery technology firms can reduce battery costs by two-thirds, the electric car industry will begin to compete on price with the combustion-engine-based incumbent.
GOING THE DISTANCE
Tesla’s Model S features a battery the size of a double mattress under the chassis.
Cosmin Laslau, an analyst with Lux Research, sees this happening slowly. He predicts the electric vehicle battery market will be worth about $3.2 billion in 2023 from the sale of 230,000 vehicles, up from about 90,000 last year. The plug-in car battery market currently is worth about $2 billion. More than 80 million conventional cars are sold worldwide every year. “The window of opportunity may be closing for some older technologies like NiMH, but lithium-ion keeps growing in new directions,” Laslau says. Musk is optimistic that even in the next few years Tesla will reduce battery costs for its cars by one-third, largely through improvements in manufacturing efficiencies and scale. BUT NOT ALL AUTOMAKERS are inter-
ested in electric cars. Wolfgang Epple, director of research and technology for Jaguar Land Rover, remains skeptical about major battery performance improvements in the near term. The Tesla Model S battery has an energy density “equivalent to 7 L [shy of 2 gal] of fuel,” Epple told an audience recently during a lecture at London’s Imperial College. “This is currently the big
inhibitor of electric cars,” he said. “I am too old to ever experience battery content the same as fuel. I fear it will take 100 or even 200 years.” Although battery developers say they are making headway with increasing batteries’ energy density, financing in the sector has become scarce and several battery companies, such as U.S. lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery developer A123 Systems, have gone bankrupt. Many more battery developers could be about to experience tougher operating conditions. Tesla and Panasonic say they plan to invest $5 billion to build a lithiumion battery factory in the western U.S. that would have capacity to build battery power systems for 500,000 cars per year by 2020, much more than the world’s electric car market today. The firm plans to sell some of the batteries from the proposed plant to other automotive companies. “In lithium-ion battery manufacture there will be a bloodbath,” the consulting firm IDTechEx warned in a recent report. “The handful of annual bankruptcies today will rise to tens a year. The industry will shake down to something like five volume players and perhaps 50 niche players.”
“Battery chemistry is a very, very tricky thing. It’s remarkable how many so-called breakthroughs you read about turn out to be nonsense.” CEN.ACS.ORG
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Some leading battery chemistry firms, such as the German chemical maker Evonik Industries, have already pared their role in the business. Evonik recently sold its shares in a lithium-ion battery cell joint venture and a finished battery joint venture to the carmaker Daimler, its partner in the start-ups. Evonik’s activities in plug-in electric cars now focus on the development of electrode materials, separator membranes, and electrolytes. Swiss chemical company Clariant is considering an exit from LFP battery materials. In 2010, Clariant opened a 2,500-metric-ton-per-year LFP plant in
ing electrolytes and various metal oxide and phosphate compounds for cathodes. The German company sees a strong future in the business. BASF’s cathode materials range from the established LFP and NMC technologies through to what the firm describes as the more experimental lithium metal-sulfur. In the latter batteries one of the challenges is that lithium nodules have a potential to build up and pierce the battery separation membrane with catastrophic consequences. Such factors in the past have encouraged car manufacturers to stick with safer but less energy-dense forms of lithium-ion.
SEARCHING FOR ENERGY DENSITY Battery developers have set targets to increase the amount of energy in cathode materials via a variety of formulations.
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Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) 45–60
Lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) 100–110
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Lithium-cobalt 150–190
Tesla-Panasonic lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum 240
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Sodium-ion 140–150
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a Energy per unit mass. Varies according to electrolyte and anode composition and battery structure. b Set by development efforts currently in progress. Timelines to reach targets vary. SOURCE: Battery developers
Quebec at a cost of about $80 million, but it has become a loss-making business for the firm. “The importance of LFP has decreased in the past few years,” acknowledges Clariant CEO Hariolf Kottmann. “Today there is only a special, very small market.” Kottman plans to decide later this year whether to divest or close the business, or refocus it on markets such as electric buses where LFP technology is used. IN CONTRAST to Clariant, BASF offers
battery makers a suite of materials, includ-
Andreas Fischer, head of battery materials research for BASF, predicts that the firm’s novel high-energy and high-voltage materials will enable customers to boost the energy density of today’s state-of-theart electric car batteries by 50% in the next few years and by another 100% within the next 10 years. Nickel-rich cathode compounds offer potential for high energy density but require sophisticated electrolyte chemistry because of the sensitivity of the material. “Here we are making tremendous progress,” Fischer says. CEN.ACS.ORG
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BASF has a stake in the U.S. lithiumTo watch a video about the Tesla and lithium-ion batteries, VIDEO ONLINE sulfur battery firm Sion Power and is also go to http://cenm.ag/tslali. developing materials in this field. This is a next-generation project that will lead to about turn out to be nonsense.” Asked if he Faradion’s sodium-ion technology is a the introduction of a lithium-sulfur battery will stick with lithium-ion for the foreseedrop-in replacement, Barker says. “No one after 2020, Fischer says. Other approaches able future, Musk pauses for a moment. “I working on the factory floor would even BASF is pursuing include double-layered really don’t know anything better,” he says. notice the difference if you swapped the oxide materials. It’s also investigating how Along with giants such as BASF, some of lithium-ion battery for our sodium-ion batto exchange carbon anodes for silicon comthe smallest start-up technology firms think tery,” he contends. pounds by developing suitable electrolyte they have that something better. Companies and binder systems. such as England-based Faradion, with just ANOTHER KEY PLAYER in sodium-ion is More than 100 BASF research scientists 10 employees and a few million dollars in Sumitomo Chemical. But having studied are involved in the effort to develop battery funding, say they are already well advanced the Japanese firm’s patents, Barker claims materials in the U.S., Germany, China, and in developing chemistry that will provide Faradion has created a new battery system, Japan, Fischer says. The company recently high battery performance at low cost. whereas Sumitomo has merely modified opened an R&D lab for electrolytes and anFaradion is developing a sodium-ion an old one. “In terms of material structure, odes in Amagasaki, Japan. sodium gives more freedom than BASF says it is on course to lithium because of the larger size of INNER WORKINGS Batteries featuring a invest several hundred million dolthe ion, so we thought there were cathode made from lithium complexes provide car lars in the business between 2011 better materials that we could work manufacturers with a safe source of power, but not the and 2016 and generate annual sales with,” he says. greatest potential energy density. in excess of $500 million by 2020. Faradion’s strategy is to demonThe majority of its sales today are strate its sodium-ion technology in consumer electronics such as first in products where the lead cell phones, but that is set to switch time is short and brand-risk is – e– e Anode: Cathode: to automotive batteries in the next limited, such as electric bikes. But e.g., graphite e.g., LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 few years, according to the firm. after giving a presentation in June “Clearly it is picking up in the at a key battery meeting, Faradion automotive industry,” says Phillip is now attracting the attention of Hanefeld, director of strategy for major car companies, says CEO BASF’s battery materials business. Chris Wright. “I am already sharpening my penThe California-based battery cil” in anticipation of capacity exmaker Envia Systems learned the pansions as the market for electric hard way, though, that auto induscar batteries builds, he says. try attention doesn’t always pay off. Although the new technologies GM, a car company that many batthat BASF is developing, such as tery start-ups would love to work Li+ lithium-sulfur, hold the promise of with, invested in Envia in 2010, far higher energy density, these are only to have a falling out with the LixC6→xLi++xe–+6C Li1–xMO2+xLi++xe–→LiMO2 not materials that even Musk, a sericompany three years later. al risk taker, is considering using in Envia’s battery builds on a lithihis cars anytime soon. Instead, he’s banking battery that it says is on track to be oneum-rich cathode technology licensed from on being able to steadily improve the energy third cheaper than lithium-ion batteries Argonne National Laboratory. The comdensity of Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries by for the same performance. The firm’s latest pany claims to have built on that technolabout 8% annually in the coming years. tests for full sodium-ion battery cells show ogy and developed proprietary lithium-ion “Lithium-sulfur is potentially a good an energy density of about 140 Wh/kg, simicathode compositions featuring nickel, cosolution for aircraft but not for cars,” lar to lithium-ion batteries. But improvebalt, manganese, and lithium-manganese Musk tells C&EN. “Potentially there are ments in materials, compound porosity, oxide with a high energy density validated improvements in lithium-sulfur that could and electrode thickness, among other facat the R&D level. But it subsequently failed help. But it also has a charge rate and power tors, will push that figure within the next to meet the performance milestones GM density issue, so you can’t charge it and disfew years to about 200 Wh/kg, according set for powering a car for 200 miles on a charge it very fast. to Jerry Barker, a veteran battery materials single charge. GM canceled the deal with “Battery chemistry is a very, very tricky chemist and the head of R&D for Faradion. Envia last summer. thing,” Musk says. “It’s remarkable how A key benefit for companies mass Envia continues to develop the techmany so-called breakthroughs you read producing lithium-ion batteries is that nology without GM. In February it was awarded a Department of Energy grant as part of a consortium developing an electric car with a multifunctional chassis. Taking on what is arguably even more complex chemistry than is involved in a
“In lithium-ion battery manufacture there will be a bloodbath.” CEN.ACS.ORG
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BASF
ON A ROLL Spheres lithium-ion battery, a handful mal runaway, which has precipitated out of nickel, scared car manufacturers of companies, including Sion cobalt, and manganese and English start-up Oxis Enaway from lithium-sulfur salts are created as ergy, consider that a lithium batteries. the first step in a BASF process to make cathode metal anode and a sulfurOxis’s solution has been to carbon cathode are the way to material for a lithium-ion create a stable battery featurbattery. Each sphere solve the battery challenge. ing a passivation layer and an is 10 µm in diameter, Lithium-sulfur batteries have electrolyte with a flash point magnification is x 1,500. a theoretical energy density above 140 ºC for a battery opof 2,735 Wh/kg—almost five erating at about 80 ºC. This times that of traditional lithimakes it safer than lithiumum-ion batteries. ion, Hampson-Jones argues. Improvements “We are very confident that in the next to the technology have led to a “sea change few years lithium-sulfur will become comin perception” among car industry execupetitive on price with lithium-ion,” Oxis tives about the material compared with a CEO Huw Hampson-Jones says. “We are couple of years ago, he says. now on the cusp of product commercialization. Even today the bill of materials for LOOKING PERHAPS SEVERAL years us is much, much more cost-effective than ahead, lithium-air and lithium-water batlithium-ion, but what we need is volume.” teries may also emerge. IBM is working on In a partnership with Lotus Engineering, Battery 500, a project to develop a lithiumImperial College, and England’s Cranfield air battery with an energy density of about University, Oxis has begun developing a 900 Wh/kg. Instead of more traditional anlithium-sulfur battery with a target energy odes and cathodes, the lithium-air battery density of 400 Wh/kg. The collaboration, would use an encapsulated lithium metal which is funded partly by the U.K. governanode and an “air cathode.” The oxidation ment, aims to achieve its goal by late 2016. of lithium at the anode and reduction of oxOxis is working with two major chemiygen at the cathode induces current flow. cal companies to make improvements in IBM says it’s still early days for lithiumseveral areas, including novel chemistry to air, and the firm isn’t looking to commerboost the conductivity of the sulfur. Oxis is cialize its technology until after 2020. “The part-owned by the South African chemical current electrolytes, which are organic solgiant Sasol, which injected $24 million into vents, are not yet stable enough for practithe start-up last year and is helping scale cal use,” says Winfried Wilcke, senior manup the manufacturing process. It also has a ager for nanoscale science and technology partnership with France’s Arkema around at IBM. Factors that IBM has to overcome the optimization of materials technology. include preventing the anode from reacting Hampson-Jones is confident his firm with the electrolyte. “Much future research has solved the potential problem of therwill focus on alkali-metal cells, which can CEN.ACS.ORG
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use untreated air, but this research is at the very early stage,” Wilcke says. IBM’s efforts add to an already bewildering array of battery chemistries under development. “Blended cathodes take this customization even further,” Lux Research’s Laslau says, “with elemental compositions tuned for high power, high energy, or a compromise thereof.” Battery companies are promising a lot—via many different chemistries—but automakers that need to offer dependable vehicles are understandably cautious about latching onto any supposed next big thing. Given the lack of breakthroughs so far, battery firms may have themselves to blame if they are unable to gain the full trust of car companies in their fledgling technologies. “Every time someone says they have a breakthrough battery I say, ‘Great, send us a sample,’ ” Tesla’s Musk says. “But they never do, or they do and it turns out to be false claims.” The wholesale replacement of the noisy, dirty combustion engine with the gentle hum of the electric motor is not around the corner quite yet. ◾
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