The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory is developing a new process that could dramatically increase the number of electric vehicle (EV) batteries produced from mined nickel ore. The effort is part of a new partnership with Talon Metals, a U.S. mining company that plans to produce high-grade nickel ore domestically.
Talon’s nickel production has valuable by-product minerals including iron compounds. The company wants to maximize recovery of these by-products instead of sending them to waste piles. The company recognized the potential to use them in production of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes (positive electrodes), which are increasingly used in lithium-ion batteries.
