Battery minerals: : A question of purity?

Producers of battery minerals should be preoccupied with sources of lithium hydroxide, according to Lux Research's [Lilia Xie]. The availability of lithium hydroxide, refined from lithium carbonate, is more important to rechargeable batteries than the purity of lithium carbonate. Lithium hydroxide produces better-performing battery cathodes, according to Xie, because the mineral contains more lithium than lithium carbonate does. While lithium carbonate is composed of 18% lithium by weight, lithium hydroxide contains 39% lithium. Lithium hydroxide's importance is going to be bigger in the future for its use as active cathode material in batteries for high power applications, Signumbox said. That means that the lithium hydroxide market is going to be much more important than lithium carbonate, since its capacity is much more limited.