Farming for battery metals

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2022-06, Vol.827, p.154092-154092, Article 154092
• Main Authors: Nkrumah, Philip Nti, Echevarria, Guillaume, Erskine, Peter D., van der Ent, Antony
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agromining; Batteries; Developing countries; Electric vehicles; Green technologies; Metal crop
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154092

Globally, there is a major shift to electric vehicles to combat climate change and these vehicles are currently powered by lithium-ion batteries that contain nickel cobalt manganese oxide materials. This technological change from internal combustion engines means that demand for battery minerals will need to increase by factors of >20 for the critical metals required for batteries in the next three decades. If this scenario plays out, it will require a dramatic increase in the worldwide capacity to produce nickel, manganese, cobalt, and lithium raw materials of sufficient purity. This demand could partly be met by agromining technology, which is a ‘green technology’ that extracts valuable products, including high-purity metal salts useful for the battery industry, from selected plants known as ‘metal crops’. Farming for nickel, cobalt, and manganese is currently within reach, whereas lithium agromining has not yet been developed but has potential. Agromining offers a sustainable approach to economically produce battery-grade raw materials from unconventional sources, thus, producing ‘green technologies’ from ‘green sources’. [Display omitted] •Globally, there is a major shift to electric vehicles to combat climate change.•These vehicles are currently powered by lithium-ion batteries.•The demand for battery minerals is rapidly growing.•Agromining produces high-purity metal salts suited for lithium-ion batteries.