Producing Lithium Hydroxide for E-Car Batteries More Sustainably

Rock Tech Lithium wants to build a European lithium factory in Brandenburg. It is to be the first factory in the industry to strive for CO2 neutrality and a closed material cycle. To this end, the company is now cooperating with Fraunhofer Umsicht and Circulor.

The aim of the collaboration between the Fraunhofer Institute Umsicht, Rock Tech Lithium and Circulor, a supply chain tracking provider, is to obtain comprehensive transparency of the lithium value chain - from the raw material, spodumene, to the end product, lithium hydroxide. In the future, it should also be possible to track the battery, its life cycle in the car and recycling.

In this way, the German-Canadian company Rock Tech is making a significant contribution to a holistic view of the ecological footprint of electric cars. In the future, the company also aims to recycle the lithium produced at the end of the battery's life. In this way, Rock Tech wants to close the cycle and in turn secure sustainable access to the raw material.

Based on the work of Fraunhofer Umsicht and Circulor, Rock Tech will create a material passport for its product. With this, the company is anticipating the upcoming EU Battery Regulation, which aims to ensure that batteries are sustainable throughout their entire life cycle.

Lifecycle Assessment

Fraunhofer Umsicht supports Rock Tech in recording all material and energy flows and calculating the life cycle assessment of the processes along the entire value chain. This begins with the raw material itself and ends with the delivery of the high-quality lithium hydroxide to the customers. Based on the data obtained, Rock Tech wants to further optimise the production process already in the planning phase – with the aim of reducing the energy demand as much as possible.

»Extensive collection and analysis of their data not only allows Rock Tech to make the production of lithium hydroxide more sustainable, but also supports them in implementing subsequent process optimisations in the most energy and environmentally friendly way possible,« explains Dr. Ilka Gehrke, head of the Environment and Resource Use department at Fraunhofer Umsicht.

Extensive Transparency

Circulor offers Rock Tech traceability of lithium from the mine in Canada to the lithium hydroxide plant in Germany. The British green tech company tracks raw materials using a software solution in real time, even when they change their physical state – as is the case with lithium. Furthermore, Circulor also offers traceability of CO₂ emissions generated in the supply chain, which allows Rock Tech to analyse and manage them at every stage of the delivery process. 

At the same time, the digitalised provision of material and energy flows is a prerequisite for the economic recycling of batteries. Rock Tech Lithium aims to become the first closed-loop supplier of lithium hydroxide. Currently, only one per cent of lithium from batteries is recycled worldwide. The company aims to use 50 per cent recycled materials from spent batteries in the production of battery-grade lithium hydroxide by 2030 at the latest.