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The most expensive material in a battery is the cathode, comprising about a third of the unit’s cost
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The EV invasion is in full swing, but do the impacts of supplying the huge amounts of cobalt, manganese and lithium needed for batteries threaten to make the mass switch an environmental and ethical own goal?
Lithium ion batteries are highly complex things, explains David Greenwood, advanced propulsion systems expert at the Warwick Manufacturing Group: “An EV battery is a mix of materials; some are conventional engineering materials, like steel and aluminium, and others are active materials, the electrochemical components.”
An anode (the negative electrode) is usually made from graphite with additives such as silicon. Graphite can be natural (mined and refined) or synthetic.
The most expensive material in the battery is for the cathode (the positive electrode), at about a third of the cost of the entire battery.
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