Three South Korean conglomerates have announced major investments into battery materials in the past month, in anticipation of projected market growth from under €30 billion/year in 2021 to nearer €75 billion in 2026. SK Materials is to build a lithium-silicon battery materials, while Posco Chemical will build a cathode materials plant and LG Chem has even bigger, longer-term plans.

Norwegian company Elkem has commissioned its pilot-scale battery materials plant at Kristiansand and begun qualification processes with several battery cell producers. It has already formed a memorandum of understanding for the supply of battery materials with Freyr.

BASF and Umicore have entered into a non-exclusive patent cross-license agreement covering a broad range of cathode active materials (CAMs) and their precursors. CAMs are used in lithium-ion batteries and both firms have been investing in them heavily, creating what they called “sizeable and largely complementary patent portfolios”.

Lanxess has announced that it will be entering the battery chemistry business from 2022. It will produce electrolyte formulations for lithium-ion batteries for China’s Guangzhou Tinci Materials Technology using a plant operated by Saltigo in Germany. Further details were not disclosed.