Green Battery: How Nickel Can Be Produced with Significantly...

Green Battery: How Nickel Can Be Produced with Significantly Lower CO2 Emissions
https://www.elektroauto-news.net/news/gruene-batterie-nickel-co2-produktion

The cross-sectoral transition from fossil fuels to electricity from renewable sources is a key component in reducing CO2 emissions and thus curbing climate change.Electric drives are already significantly more climate-friendly than gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles in transport, and their climate advantage will be even greater in the future.
This is partly because electricity for propulsion and production is increasingly coming from renewable sources.This is partly because the materials used are also constantly being improved.Nickel is indispensable for electrification, especially in the transport sector and industry.Nickel is needed for batteries, magnets, and stainless steel.

Forecasts therefore indicate that nickel demand is expected to double by 2040. However, conventional nickel production currently produces around 20 tons of CO2 per ton of nickel – a significant environmental impact."If we continue to produce nickel conventionally and use it for electrification, we are simply shifting the environmental impact from the transportation sector to the metallurgy sector," says Ubaid Manzoor, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials in Düsseldorf.
Together with his colleagues, he has now developed a CO2-free, energy-efficient process for nickel extraction that also enables the use of previously neglected, low-grade ores, according to a recent press release from the Max Planck Society.The researchers published their results in the journal Nature.In the process, nickel is extracted from ores using hydrogen plasma in a single step – completely without carbon.Including the CO2 emissions generated during the mining and transport of nickel ores, the new process is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 84 percent.Furthermore, the process is up to 18 percent more energy-efficient when using renewable energy sources, as the repeated heating and cooling of the ores, which is common with conventional processes, is avoided.
To date, the industry has predominantly relied on high-quality ores, as extracting nickel from lower-quality ores is technically much more challenging.Nickel occurs in complex silicates or iron oxides.Conventional processes therefore require several energy-intensive steps: calcination, smelting, reduction, and refining.With their new process, the Max Planck scientists can also process lower-quality ores – which account for around 60 percent of the world's nickel reserves – in a single arc furnace into a high-quality nickel product, known as ferronickel.The process therefore makes sense from both an economic and ecological perspective.
"Using hydrogen plasma and by controlling the thermodynamics within the arc furnace, we are able to convert the complex crystal structure of the minerals into simpler ionic forms – even without catalysts," explains Isnaldi Souza Filho, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials.From Research to ApplicationTranslating the production process into industrial application is made easier by the fact that it can utilize methods already used in many production plants.
"The reduction of the ores occurs exclusively at the reaction surface – not in the entire molten bath. For implementation on an industrial scale, it is therefore crucial that the unreduced melt continuously reaches the reaction surface," explains Manzoor."This can be achieved using high-current arcs, electromagnetic stirring systems, and gas pulses."The new process for producing green nickel enables, among other things, a more environmentally friendly electrification of transportation.
The extracted ferronickel can be used directly in stainless steel production or – after further processing – for battery materials and high-performance magnets.The slag produced during the reduction process can also be used, for example, in cement or bricks.The process can also be transferred to other metals such as cobalt, which also plays a key role in electromobility and energy storage.