The Battery Battle

Electric vehicles are coming, bringing with them battery technology that could mean increased--or decreased--market demand for a handful of metals.

By Kent Kiser

Kent Kiser is associate editor of Scrap Processing and Recycling.

Come 1998, automobile battery technology--and demand for some traditionally recycled metals--may never be the same again. By that year, zero-emission vehicles (a euphemism for electric cars) are not only expected to be available to the public, but also could be required in several states.

In California, for instance, the California Air Resources Board ruled in 1991 that carmakers that sell more than 35,000 cars in the state must ensure that at least 2 percent of their new vehicles sold there be emission-free by 1998, with this minimum rising to 5 percent by 2001 and 10 percent by 2003. While no other states have yet adopted similar standards, it’s anticipated that a number of states in the Northeast will soon do so, individually and/or as a region through a coalition called the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (based in Boston) or through the Ozone Transport Commission, a group that represents the 12 Northeast states from Maine to Virginia. The federal government, meanwhile, supports the development of new electric vehicle technology, and the Clinton administration has even offered to share heretofore unreleased government technology with U.S. automakers if they will use it to create the car of the future--which could be of the electric variety.

The potential effect of these efforts on the U.S. automotive market is difficult to ignore. After all, together the Northeast states and California account for more than a third of the country’s new car and light truck sales. Thus, according to some estimates, zero-emission vehicle mandates in these areas could put about 70,000 electric cars on the road by 1998. Furthermore, if every state were to follow California’s lead, there would be 850,000 such vehicles in use by 2001 and 1.7 million by 2003.

The Technology Challenge

Although U.S. carmakers have responded to these mandates by stepping up work on development of their zero-emission vehicles, the Big Three--Detroit’s Chrysler Corp. and General Motors Corp., and Ford Motor Co. of Dearborn, Mich.--nonetheless maintain that such vehicles can’t be commercially viable before 2000 and have asked for a trade-off in which they would push development of alternative-fuel vehicles (those using natural gas, methanol, and other gas substitutes) if the federal government would persuade the Northeast states to hold off on electric car requirements.

The biggest problem they face in introducing electric vehicles is that such cars can’t compete with internal-combustion vehicles in terms of cost and performance--at least that’s the case today. Why? Because electric car battery technology is still in the slow lane. You see, the standard starting/lighting/ignition-type batteries found in internal-combustion cars aren’t appropriate for electric vehicles, which need deep-cycling batteries--those that can go from a full charge to no charge during operation and can be recharged day after day. And current deep-cycling battery systems can suffer from a number of maladies, including heavy weight (800 to 1,100 pounds is common), short traveling range (usually less than 100 miles), high cost, limited life, and hours-long recharging time.  What is needed for electric vehicles is a deep-cycling battery system that is not only lighter, cheaper, maintenance-free, and easy to recycle, but one that offers long life, high power for quick and frequent acceleration, high energy for long-distance traveling, and quick rechargeability.

Quite a challenge, but millions are being spent on research to create such a system.  The Big Three, for instance, formed the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) in 1991, a $260-million joint venture with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) (Palo Alto, Calif.) to fund research through 1995 to explore advanced battery technologies. Lead and battery producers, meanwhile, formed their own group in 1992 called the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium, which is managed by the International Lead Zinc Research Organization (Research Triangle Park, N.C.). Between these consortia and other organizations, the race is on to develop the automotive battery system of the future. (For a look at developments in consumer batteries, see "Competition in the Consumer Sector" below).

Lead and Nickel Options Dominate the Near Term

In the near term-from today through 1998-most battery researchers agree that lead-acid and nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries are the only systems that can come close to meeting the performance goals of electric vehicles.

As the reigning king of the automotive battery industry, lead-acids enjoy the advantages of being firmly entrenched in the market, having an existing recycling infrastructure, and being less expensive-for now-than other commercially available battery systems.  As a result, some estimates predict deep-cycling lead-acids could claim up to 70 percent of the near-term electric vehicle market.  The Impact coupe, in fact-the electric vehicle GM is developing-employs lead-acid power.

The main drawback to lead-acid batteries in this application is that lead is a heavy element, and weight ruins electric vehicle performance.  "When you use a heavy, dense material like lead, regardless of its advantages-and there are many-it can't compete," says a lead expert.  In addition, flooded-cell lead-acids must be watered regularly, and sealed lead-acid systems are generally not as powerful as other systems.

One prospect on the lead-acid horizon is just that, the new Horizon battery system, which reportedly meets virtually all of the USABC's mid-term performance goals. Compared with conventional lead-acid systems, the Horizon is less expensive, lasts three times longer, offers more power, and can be recharged in minutes rather than hours, according to its creators, BDM Technologies Inc. (McLean, Va.) and Electrosource Inc. (Austin, Texas).  Instead of using cast lead plates like traditional lead-acids use, the Horizon's “plates" are made of lead wire coextruded in a woven grid pattern onto a fiberglass core, which makes it lighter, stronger, and able to withstand more charge/discharge cycles, the creators claim.  "The Horizon has taken the best of all the lead-acid technologies and combined them into one battery system," says Don Karner, president of Electric Transportation Applications, a Phoenix-based electric vehicle consulting and fabrication firm.  "It has a lot of potential and could offer considerable improvement on standard lead-acid performance."

Other industry experts are more skeptical.  "I have a hard time believing the claims," says one lead expert.  "There doesn't seem to be anything in the technology that would allow it to perform as well as the firm claims.  There are things that just don't quite make sense." Some of these "things" may be resolved when Horizon Battery Technologies Inc.--a joint venture between BDM and Electrosource--completes its planned 88,000-square-foot pilot production facility in San Marcos, Texas, in January.  The facility will evaluate advanced mass-production techniques for the Horizon and produce batteries for third-party testing.

Meanwhile, Ni-Cds, which Chrysler is using in its electric vehicle development--the TEVan 11 minivan--are said to offer long life, twice the range of lead-acid batteries, and quick charging, which could help them claim as much as 30 percent of the near-term market, according to the Cadmium Council (Reston, Va.).

On the downside, Ni-Cds can cost up to 10 times more than lead-acid systems due to the price of nickel, and they are hampered by limited recycling capacity and environmental concerns because of their cadmium content.

"I don't think Ni-Cds will have a chance in the long term because there are already restrictions on their use in small applications," says a government energy researcher.

Mid-Term Possibilities: Nickel and Sodium

In the mid term--estimated from 1998 to 2003--the consensus seems to be that nickel-metal hydride and sodium-sulfur systems are the most promising battery technologies.

Nickel-metal hydride batteries have many of the admirable attributes of their NiCd cousins, including high energy and low maintenance, without the environmental drawbacks of cadmium.  But there's a downside to these batteries, too.  For example, a nickel-metal hydride battery developed by Ovonic Battery Co. (Troy, Mich.)--which features one electrode made of nickel hydroxide and another made of a proprietary multicrystalline alloy composed of nickel, chromium, titanium, zirconium, and vanadium--reportedly has a limited recharging life, may not be capable of rapid recharging, poses recycling problems, and is more expensive than Ni-Cds.  "Nickel-metal hydride could come in, but it doesn't eliminate the cost problem," says one battery expert.  "Nickel isn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination, and the mass production capacity is not there for nickel-metal hydride or Ni-Cds for automotive uses."

Another variation--the nickel-iron battery--offers better traveling range than lead-acids, but cost is again a problem.  More critical, nickel-iron batteries produce hydrogen during charging, which raises potential safety problems, and they require a system for regular watering.

In a departure from its counterparts, which are using metal-based batteries, Ford has bet on the sodium-sulfur system in its electric vehicle endeavor, the Ecostar van.  This technology, which uses sodium and sulfur as the two electrodes and a solid ceramic as the electrolyte, reportedly has twice the energy storage capacity of current lead-acid systems, offers good range and acceleration, uses inexpensive materials, and requires no maintenance, but it suffers from low recharging life, poor recyclability, concerns about the potential reactivity of sodium and sulfur, and must be kept at 660 degrees F at all times, thus posing energy and safety concerns.  In addition, most of the cost of sodium-sulfur batteries lies in their fabrication, and at the moment they are still limited to prototype, hand-built systems, raising doubts about their mass-production prospects.

One other possible mid-term option is the bipolar lead-acid system, currently under development by two firms, Trojan Battery Corp. (Santa Fe Springs, Calif.) and Arias Research Associates Inc. (Whittier, Calif.). The bipolar design is said to give the battery high power by eliminating much of its internal resistance, enabling it to transmit current more efficiently.  This power advantage means that fewer bipolar batteries are needed to propel an electric vehicle, thus reducing the overall weight of the vehicle's battery system.  Nevertheless, bipolar designers face the challenges of how to scale the battery up, develop a conductive plate that doesn't degrade over time, and address seal problems around each cell.

Lithium and Zinc: Long-Term Long Shots?

According to EPRI, "The key to developing an electric vehicle battery system that can improve vehicle range between charges is the use of more energetic electrode materials than lead or iron." As such, much current research is focusing long-term sights--from 2003 onward--on such options as lithium- and zinc-based batteries.

The two main types of lithium batteries are lithium-polymer and lithium-aluminum/iron sulfide, both of which reportedly offer light weight as well as high energy and power. Lithium-polymer batteries can operate from ambient temperature up to 248 degrees F and offer design flexibility in that they can be manufactured in versatile thin film. Lithium-aluminum/iron sulfide batteries, on the other hand, operate at about 660 degrees F, posing the same energy and safety worries as the sodium-sulfur system.

Other factors are that lithium is an expensive and highly reactive material that can spontaneously combust in air, and such batteries have low recharging life, are currently available only in small cells, and may not be available in large-scale versions before the turn of the century, if then.  A major challenge in scaling up lithium-polymer batteries is to find a way to dissipate the heat generated during charging and discharging without causing long-term damage to the polymer electrolyte. "When you're talking about lithium-based batteries for cars, people always tell you the technology is 20 years away," says George Vary, director of the American Zinc Association (Washington, D.C.).

Meanwhile, the zinc industry's hopeful is the zinc-air battery, a technology developed more than 100 years ago that uses air as the cathode and zinc as the anode.  Zinc-airs are known for their high energy, long life, excellent range, quick rechargeability, easy recyclability, and low cost.

Despite these attributes, automakers have shown little interest in the zinc-air battery.   Some claim that zinc-airs are good at providing constant power but not high energy for acceleration, and there are concerns about the lifespan of the zinc and air electrodes.   Also, "zinc-air isn't a good candidate because it's not a sealed battery," says J. Hampton Barnett, director of electric vehicle operations at the Electric Vehicle Test Facility (Chattanooga, Tenn.).

Still, there are promising developments on zinc-air's horizon.  The German Postal Service, for instance, is said to be planning to convert half its truck fleet--25,000 vehicles--to zinc-air batteries within the next three years, using a system developed by Electric Fuel Ltd. (Jerusalem).  "Zinc-airs are just starting to be used as computer batteries," Karner says, "and it'll be a while before you'll see them in electric vehicles.  Still, they show a lot of promise because of their high energy."

Zinc-bromine batteries have also been held out as a possibility, but fears are that they could be unreliable because pumps are used for electrolyte circulation, and there's a perception that the bromine content could lead to safety problems.

The Market Potentials

While many metals have a stake in the battery battle, the final outcome will mean more to some than others.  Take lead, for instance.  Batteries already represent lead's largest market, accounting for 64 percent of annual lead demand in the Western World and as much as 81 percent in the United States and 70 percent in Japan, according to the International Lead Zinc Study Group (London).  Since it relies so heavily on the battery market, lead is in the most vulnerable position in the long term.  Fortunately, the metal's near-term position appears secure, and it can find solace in the fact that no one expects the internal-combustion vehicle to disappear for decades, if ever, and even alternative-fuel vehicles, for now at least, need lead-acid batteries for their starting, lighting, and ignition systems.

The scenario isn't nearly as serious for nickel or zinc.  For nickel, which relies on the stainless steel market for about 60 percent of its annual consumption, increased demand from the battery sector "would be a nice addition to the business and we would enjoy it," says Johannes P. Schade, president of the Nickel Development Institute (Toronto), but it's not a make-or-break situation.

As for zinc, "zinc-air batteries could use about 100 pounds of zinc per vehicle, which could be a sizable market for the metal in the long term," says Vary, but its prospects for widespread use are currently too remote to bank on.  As a result, zinc will continue to rely on galvanizing--which represents more than 50 percent of its consumption--as its largest market for some time.

At the moment, the search for the battery of the future is an open race, and no one can predict which technology will win.  "There are so many ifs about the whole electric-vehicle issue," says a lead expert, "that it's very difficult to project what will happen." In all likelihood, carmakers will use several battery systems because there will be different needs depending on whether the system is used in a commercial fleet, public transit vehicle, or passenger car, which could mean that lead, nickel, and zinc---and perhaps other metals--could all enjoy increased demand in the electric future.

Competition in the Consumer Sector

In the consumer market, where batteries are used in everything from flashlights to computers to hearing aids to power tools, seven battery types dominate the scene: alkalines, lithium cells, mercuric-oxide button cells, Ni-Cds, silver-oxide cells, zinc-air button cells, and zinc-carbon cells. Of these, disposable alkalines and zinc-carbon cells account for more than 80 percent of sales, while Ni-Cds are the predominant choice in rechargeable applications.

New battery systems are being developed, however, to keep up with the growing demand for portable products that use rechargeable batteries, as well as to address the environmental problems of existing batteries, some of which contain potentially hazardous components such as cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and silver. If successful, these new systems--outlined below--could compete for market share with the industry stalwarts.

Rayovac Corp. (Madison, Wis.) has introduced a rechargeable alkaline, the Renewal, that could become a contender against both traditional disposable alkalines and Ni-Cds.

Nickel-metal hydride batteries reportedly offer 50-percent more power than Ni-Cds without the cadmium concerns and are, therefore, finding expanded use in computers, cellular telephones, and other rechargeable products. The principal drawbacks of nickel-metal hydrides are that they are more expensive than Ni-Cds, lose energy when not in use, and aren’t as good as Ni-Cds at meeting sudden, strong power demands, which explains why Ni-Cds continue to monopolize the power tool niche.

Lithium-ion batteries, already used in such products as camcorders, are lighter and more compact than other rechargeable batteries and reportedly offer three times more power by weight than Ni-Cds. Unfortunately, they, too, aren’t yet suitable for high-output applications such as computer disk drives and power tools. Another lithium variant, the lithium-polymer battery, could offer four times the energy of Ni-Cds, but it is still undergoing lab tests.

Zinc-air batteries, commonly used in small devices such as hearing aids, could be scaled up to become competitive for use in larger products such as computers. One model, developed by AER Energy Resources Inc. (Atlanta), can reportedly power personal computers up to six times longer than Ni-Cds.

While these new technologies pose some threat to existing battery systems, experts don’t expect them to totally displace the older batteries anytime soon. “The percentage of market share is simply going to shift around,” says Norm England, president of the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association (Atlanta). •