Lepidolite is expected to help increase China’s lithium yield to 280,000 tons in 2025-13 percent of global supply–up from 88,000 tons last year.Ĭhina has over half of the world’s lithium refining capacity but has to rely on imports for about two-thirds of the raw material. Because of China’s cheap coal generation and huge coal generation capacity, however, it has ample energy to process the material. For every ton of lithium carbonate equivalent processed from lepidolite, 200 tons of waste are produced that needs treating and disposal. Chinese lithium mining is increasing its use of lithium derived from lepidolite–a lithium-bearing rock often considered poor quality and environmentally unsound because of its low yield and high energy costs. Lithium is important to the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries and because China is the world’s biggest market for new energy vehicles, lithium is particularly critical to its electric vehicle manufacturing industry. Further, over the next two years, China’s share of cobalt production is expected to reach half of global output, up from 44 percent currently. China’s cobalt refining reached 140,000 metric tons in 2022–77 percent share of the world’s refining capacity. Chinese-controlled lithium mines, including those in Africa, are expected to increase output to 705,000 tons by 2025, from 194,000 tons in 2022-almost quadrupling the amount of its global supply and lifting China’s share of the critical mineral to 32 percent of the world’s supply, up from 24 percent last year. ![]() ![]() China’s efforts to ramp up lithium extraction could see it accounting for nearly a third of the world’s supply by the middle of the decade.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |