Battery partnerships: Albermarle/BMW tie-up for lithium for EV batteries; EcoGraf partners with BASF on anode recycling

Albemarle Corporation, US firm that provides essential elements for mobility, energy, connectivity, and health, has announced a definitive agreement with the BMW Group to deliver battery-grade lithium to help the automaker pursue high-performance, premium electric vehicles (EVs).

This multi-year agreement, which takes effect in 2025, is one of the company’s largest ever globally and is of significant volume and value. In addition to supplying the BMW Group with lithium hydroxide, the two companies will partner on technology for safer and more energy dense lithium-ion batteries.

“Albemarle is committed to building a more resilient world,” said Albemarle Energy Storage President Eric Norris. “We welcome the opportunity to work alongside the BMW Group to further enable the clean energy transition.”

This is the second supply agreement between the companies, but the first to include a shared interest in research opportunities to accelerate lithium battery innovations.

In other news, Australia's EcoGraf Limited has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with German chemical firm BASF, which sets out a framework for EcoGraf to support BASF’s recycling R&D in Europe with its anode recycling capability to accelerate the objective of enabling a circular economy and reducing CO₂ emissions.

Specifically, the two partners plan to use the patented Ecograf process to recover anode material from BASF’s leached black mass, which is recovered from production waste and end-of-life lithium-ion batteries. The partners intend to use the recycled material to produce product samples, which will then be made available to customers from the battery and industrial markets for evaluation.

The test results will in turn be used to refine the recycling process scheme and system planning. To increase customer acceptance, the recycled material will be blended with the high purity and high performance Tanzanian graphite from Ecograf’s Epanko project.

BASF operates a commercial-scale active cathode materials plant in Schwarzheide, Germany, and has broken ground on a battery recycling prototype plant at the same site.

Ecograf expects to open its first product qualification facility in Western Australia by the end of the first quarter of 2024. This facility, with metallurgical processing capabilities, will be capable of producing purified spherical graphite (active anode material) using EcoGraf’s proprietary HFfree purification technology. The facility will provide the blueprint for commercial scale purification facilities that the company intends to build and operate in key global lithium-ion battery markets.

In parallel, Ecograf continues to work on the development of its Epanko graphite mine in Tanzania. An application is currently being submitted to the Tanzanian government for an extension of the existing mining license. The larger area is to be guaranteed for 50 years.

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