Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization

by Ed Conway

There’s the traditional battery recipe, lithium cobalt oxide (LCO): the closest thing to those early lithium-ion batteries pioneered by John Goodenough and still the most common cathode chemistry in smartphones and laptops today. There’s nickel, manganese and cobalt alongside the lithium (NMC), which is slightly less energy-dense but much longer-lasting. These are the kinds of batteries most new electric cars use, though the Tesla batteries Panasonic makes in Nevada have a subtly different recipe with nickel, cobalt and aluminium oxide in addition to lithium (NCA). There is something called lithium ferro-phosphate (LFP), a combination of iron and lithium phosphate, which is far more stable than other lithium-ion batteries but doesn’t hold quite as much power. You get the idea: lots of recipes, each with their own trade-offs.