Argonne National Laboratory partners with Talon Metals and Toyota Motor North America to boost domestic battery production

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory recently entered into two partnerships that could change how batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) are sourced. With Talon Metals, Argonne is developing a new process that could dramatically increase the number of EV batteries produced from mined nickel ore. Talon Metals is a U.S. mining company that plans to produce high-grade nickel ore domestically.

A separate collaboration with Toyota Motor North America aims to use recycling to make domestic battery supply chains more circular. Both partnerships have the potential to reduce the United States’ reliance on foreign sources of battery materials.

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.

Argonne and Talon have entered into a Collaborative Research and Development Agreement. They are developing a process that uses iron sulfides from Talon to synthesize LFP cathodes.

Researchers at Argonne’s Materials Engineering Research Facility (MERF) will develop, optimize and implement an LFP synthesis process and then test the cathodes’ performance in coin battery cells. Talon’s processing experts will collaborate with MERF scientists to calibrate the iron compounds’ purity and composition to enhance cathode production. The team’s objective is to make commercial-quality cathodes.

An effective new process can potentially reduce LFP manufacturing costs by eliminating traditional production steps. It could also improve domestic battery supply chains in a number of ways. Domestic LFP cathode production is currently limited. Argonne could potentially change that by enabling U.S. battery manufacturers and recyclers with a new LFP synthesis technology. Additionally, the process could make U.S. nickel mining and processing more profitable, encouraging more companies to embark on domestic nickel production.

“Nickel concentrates produced from high-grade nickel ore contain four times more iron than nickel,” says Talon CEO Henri van Rooyen. “By using this iron to produce LFP batteries, Talon can supply ingredients for multiple battery technologies, generate a new income stream and reduce waste. And we can substantially increase the number of batteries manufactured from the same ton of rock compared with conventional approaches.”

“Our partnership with Talon Metals seeks to make more efficient use of critical materials in domestic battery supply chains so that the U.S. can rely less on other countries to achieve its clean energy goals,” said Jeff Spangenberger, Argonne’s materials recycling group leader.

DOE's Vehicle Technologies Office provided funding for Argonne’s portion of this project.

Argonne, Toyota Research Institute of North America, and Toyota’s Battery Lifecycle Solutions group are exploring an innovative approach to recycling battery components. If successful, this effort can make domestic battery supply chains more robust and circular. That in turn can enable rapid deployment of EVs in the United States.

In most battery recycling today, the chemical structure of end-of-life battery components is broken down into the raw materials used in manufacturing. Unlike this traditional approach, a technique called direct recycling carefully extracts components from spent batteries. The components’ original structure is retained. If done well, manufacturers can re-use the components, reducing costs and waste.

Argonne and Toyota Motor North America have signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to develop a direct recycling process for cathodes (positive electrodes) in lithium-ion batteries, which are prevalent in EVs. In particular, the team is looking at cathodes made of nickel, manganese and cobalt.

The collaboration is taking advantage of an effective, patent-pending direct recycling process developed by the Argonne-based ReCell Center. The process uses a magnet to separate cathodes and anodes (negative electrodes) from batteries.

Toyota is providing Argonne with Toyota plug-in hybrid EV batteries. Argonne researchers will apply ReCell’s direct recycling process to Toyota’s battery cells, extracting and regenerating the cathode material. The team will test various aspects of the cathodes’ performance in coin cells.

If the cells perform well, Argonne will scale up the process, build larger pouch cells from the extracted cathodes, and test the cells’ performance. In parallel, Toyota will use its own research facilities to build and test cells.

The team will compare the performance of the recycled cathodes with the performance of new, pristine cathodes. The team will also use Argonne’s EverBatt model to evaluate the costs and environmental effects of applying the direct recycling process to Toyota’s batteries.

“Our goal is to prove that the process can make high-performing cathodes cost-effectively while reducing energy use and emissions,” says Argonne Principal Materials Scientist Albert Lipson. “If we’re successful, EV and battery manufacturers can potentially commercialize the process.”

The research project is part of the ReCell Center, which is supported by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office.