Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Battery Circular Economy

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome everyone. Big welcome back. It's February, time flies. We just have been chatting about this. The weather is great or better in some place than others, but it feels like things are improving. And yeah, if you are new to this, this is a session we're running frequently. Last year, we ran it mostly every week. At this point, we're running it more about once a month. We might increase it again in the future, but for now, let's keep it always the first Saturday of the month. I'm going to quickly also mute Martin before bringing you up in Bavia just to make sure everyone hears as well. So essentially, we have this club called battery evolution, which we use to chat about all kinds of battery topics and battery related topics. And we really love to do this in a really nice form. That means we bring on the one hand, great conversation starters with us. Martin is with us today. We're going to introduce him shortly. But also, we really enjoy to hear from all of you, you know, everyone who's in this room right now, anybody joining later.

1:02And we really enjoy this dialogue and really hear different perspectives and also hear these questions. We might never have thought about ourselves, but other people, you know, are really passionate about them. And that's what is really fun. And yeah, the number is missing today. That's kind of my oversight. But this is the 46th session of these we are running. Bavia just mentioned it has been over a year now. So this is really exciting for us as well. And Bavia and I also hosting this podcast called battery insiders, where this recording going to go into, but we also put a reflection on this. So if you don't listen to this entire recording, you can also listen to the reflections. And there we're trying to summarize some of our highlights and also give a bit of commentary on some of our thoughts on what had been discussed. And one last thing maybe on this. First, you see on top, there's the sign that's recorded. So again, you know, if you don't want to be heard, please make sure you don't. So either one, you know, maybe you want to tell us and kind of can edit you out. But on this platform, unfortunately, we cannot edit you out. So this recording will stay up. So maybe just be a bit conscious if you're saying something. But I'm sure we're all grownups and we all know what we can say, you know, maybe we cannot say. But beyond that, also, you know, for free to have a quite a casual forum, you know, we like to keep it easy. It's not like, you know, like it should be, you know, relaxed and we have like some open free flow discussions and there's no real viewpoints.

2:26You know, we can try to correct each other and we can try to argue. But at the end of the day, I think we're all here to learn together, to grow together, really address some of these topics, which we find really important. And one, two other things. Again, if you want to join later on, please just raise your hand. And at the bottom, you have this hand raising symbol. And when you do that, Bavia and myself can, you know, bring you up on stage. And we really love to have you all on stage. And that's because that's where it gets really interesting. We don't want just the three of us talking for the rest of the session, because the session lasts one half hours and also an experience. The end tends to get very busy. So from our experience, the earlier you want to raise your hand, maybe once Marta has done this opener, please please go straight to it and really make sure you raise your hand, we bring you up. And once you're on stage, there's two things. One is because we unfortunately can't see each other. So it means if somebody, you know, is kind of raising their hand on stage, it's a bit tricky. So the way we kind of doing this is, you know, if you mute yourself, while you're not speaking, you can kind of flicker your microphone, like kind of tap it slowly to times like this. And that kind of helps us as moderators to see that you want to speak in next. And then if you want to applaud, because it also happens. And again, we cannot teach other, you can also flicker your microphone quickly like this. That kind of also shows to others that you'll be excited about this point. That's when I applaud this and point with this person right now. Great. I think with this, you know, my name is Simon. I also realize I never say that, but it's okay. And I think people know, but I will bring this over to you, Bavia, introduce today's topic as well as Martin.

4:06Hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. My name is Bavia, and I am so excited to join all of you today as one of the co-moderators for today's battery revolution session on battery circular economy. Today we have with us Dr. Martin Buce. It is wonderful to meet you again. I believe once upon a time we had connected when I was doing my research in Europe. And so it's finally nice to speak to you after some quite some time. Dr. Martin Buce is the director of battery business at Hager Energy. And prior to that, he completed his PhD at ETH Zurich. He has a wealth of experience in this field. And I'm excited to hear from him today. I hope all of you are as well. Now turning to today's topic, we're talking about battery circular economy in practice. This is a topic a bit near and dear to my own heart as I have focused on end of life batteries, reuse, recycling, pretty much since I joined battery world, if you will. And I'm excited to hear from him on how we can actually put this in practice, or rather, if it already is, then where and how. And so I'm looking forward to hearing from him on these things. With that, I will hand it over to him to speak to us a little bit about himself, tell us about his background, and then what motivated him to join or rather work so much on batteries, and finally touch on our topic, which again is battery circular economy in practice. And after that, we will love to hear questions from all of you. So please do be thinking about which points he makes and what you're curious about. And with that, over to you, Martin.

5:54All right. Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for the kind introduction, and great to meet both of you again. So I'm very excited to be here today and to discuss with you about the battery circular economy from a practical standpoint. For today's session, I think my objective is twofold. On the one hand side, I'd like to provide you with some examples and ideas about how to make the battery value chain more sustainable in practice. So concrete things that we are doing or planning to do as a firm that is active in the downstream part of the value chain. So we're integrating batteries into our systems, operating them over the lifetime, servicing them, and then organizing their end-of-life handling. On the other hand side, you know, I'd also really much like to gain new perspectives from you, the listeners, and you know, the amazing community that Simon, Abafia, and their colleagues have put together here from Battery Associates, and hopefully trigger some insightful discussions afterwards. And I hope that everyone, you know, goes away from this podcast with some new thoughts and some new ideas. So in the next 10-15 minutes or so, I'll do three things. Number one, talk a little about my background and motivations. Number two, quickly introduce the topic from a high level and from a general perspective. And then number three, really talk and discuss what we as a downstream player in this value chain can do, are doing, and what challenges and opportunities we are facing.

7:23All right. So a little bit about myself, my background is mechanical engineering, you know, with a focus on energy, energy storage technologies in particular. So climate change and the energy transition in particular in Germany have been on my radar for quite some years. And yeah, with this perspective, I always wanted to kind of make sure I understand problems holistically from different perspectives. And I was really motivated always when challenges kind of needed to require like interdisciplinary solutions. So already doing my studies, I kind of interned across the value chain from R&D at Siemens Consulting and Energy Trading at RWE, and also Finance in New York, a small bank. And then after my studies, I kind of tried to combine these experiences, working as a top management consultant and one of Europe's largest utilities, EON. And yeah, they worked on strategy and business development topics, mostly focusing on photovoltaics and batteries. But batteries, yeah, have always been really kind of intriguing to me due to their like inherent complexity. And I really wanted to learn a bit more about that and dive deeper. So I got the opportunity to start a PhD at EDH, where, yeah, I focused kind of on the question of how batteries can contribute to climate change mitigation and specifically how the carbon footprint could be minimized. I worked on degradation models with second life and vehicle to grid. And yeah, during that time, also got to know Simon and during my time in Cambridge, which was really fun. And then after my PhD, I really wanted to kind of bring this back into practice and see what we can do here.

9:11And yeah, now I'm very grateful to have the opportunity at Hager Energy with its brand E3DC, where really my main focus is on making the battery circular economy a reality for us and most importantly for our customers. So, okay. And with that, let me quickly introduce the circular economy topic from a high level. So why are we even talking about this? Why is this even relevant? And we all know that the batteries can contribute significantly to climate change mitigation, be it as part of electric vehicles, stationary storage, or by connecting these two sectors. So the power and mobility sector with each other through vehicle to grid or second life applications. But we also know that producing batteries is a rather energy intense exercise, which does release CO2. So just to kind of baseline also on the figure. So how much CO2? Well, that really depends on your value chain setup. So if you look at some of the recent studies, for example, from Argon National Lab, this might be between, it could be as low as 40 kilograms of CO2 per kilowatt hour of battery capacity.

10:24You know, if you use nickel refining in Canada and, you know, hydroelectric power and renewable electricity during cell production and renewable electricity for all other pathways. But it can also be as high as 140 kilograms per kilowatt hour of battery capacity. So when you use Russian based nickel production with like extra CF4 release and aluminum produced in China and, I don't know, coal based electricity for the cell production. So it really depends on how you set up your value chain. So it really depends on the actors and on the choices that the actors are making. So if we're looking at this, so it's a broad range. Where is this coming from? Okay. What are the main contributors? So of course, it's the raw materials and refining of the raw materials. But it's also the cathode production process, which is pretty energy intense. And then the cathode current collectors, typically aluminum, which is very energy intense to get to. And then, of course, we have cell production where in particular the drying of the wet slurry is pretty energy intense.

11:39And it's also not just about electricity. So especially in cathode production and also in the drying process, we need heat, high temperature heat. So that's that's the name tougher to decarbonize. And yeah, one key challenge with all of these figures along the supply chain, of course, is transparency. So it's not typically known, for example, to a company like us as an integrator where we are just purchasing the battery modules from tier one suppliers and in, let's say, Southeast Asia. So, you know, what exactly how exactly does the supply chain looks like and as companies like Minviro or Circulor that are really, I think, doing a great job and bringing more transparency to the supply chain. I think this is something that's really, really needed to make sure you can kind of take the right levers and and really steer this process of improving everything. However, I think one other important note I want to make is that even though the current footprint can differ a lot.

12:51The key message is also that already today, of course, if you use these batteries, for example, in electric vehicles, electric vehicles are much better CO2 footprint than internal combustion engine cars. So this is not about that anymore. It's just about how can we improve further so that at the end of the day we can get to connect to net zero and where, you know, what are the most important levers to kind of work on. And I think something that's that's often overlooked is the dynamics in this. A couple of years ago, there were some studies out there that looked so LCA studies that looked at CO2 emissions and batteries and they worked off of pilot scale production plants and so on. And I came to the conclusion that maybe it's not so good electric vehicles and we see the dynamics. So the industry is ramping up really quickly. And also there's lots of innovation along the supply chain. So, you know, we're talking about, for example, in cell production, maybe moving to dry processing, which would definitely reduce the CO2 footprint.

13:50I think you make or or BASF have had some really interesting thoughts on how to reduce the CO2 footprint of cattle production. North world in Europe is definitely one of the players really involved in these things. So there's lots of innovation. And I think we are we are on a very, very good track there. However, you know, since I think many of the discussions have been kind of focusing on the upstream side of things, it's a space where we as a company are not so active in today. I'd also really want to highlight the importance of the use phase and the end of life phase of these batteries. So it's not just about where we produce this or release the CO2 originally, but it's also how can we increase the utility of these batteries? Yeah. So if we need less batteries or if we can get more out of these batteries, obviously, that's a huge benefit to the overall CO2 footprint as well. And this utility, we might measure it as kilowatt hour throughput.

14:50We might measure it in euros or we have maybe some other value metrics. But I think it's really key to kind of think about the use phase and the end of life phase as well. So all right. And yeah, and one key thought here, I think I would like to leave you with this, that of course, batteries are designed with a certain purpose or a certain design or certain service characteristics in mind. And, you know, you can design batteries for different things and the application is really, really relevant. And that's why I really want to highlight the importance of the use phase. And with that, then I will get to the practice, circular economy in practice and what we do, what we plan to do. Very brief introduction of Harder Energy and E3DC to help you understand our position. Now we provide battery storage and charging solutions to residential and small commercial end users to enable them to store electricity from their rooftops, the rooftop PV systems, and then, you know, take part in the decentral energy transition.

15:59We develop the power electronics and software completely in house and provide it as one system to the customer. So we then warrant the system, we service the system. And yeah, as an overall strategy, I think it's pretty similar to, for example, what Apple is doing in smartphones. So that's kind of how we think about it. And as E3DC, we've been an early mover in the segment with setting the first systems almost 10 years ago now. And now we are serving more than 60,000 customers in Central Europe. We manage a portfolio of more than 600 megawatt hours of batteries, which is equivalent to more than 100,000 battery modules or, you know, tens of millions of battery cells. And why is this relevant to us? Why are we even talking about this? Why do we think we have a role to play here, even though, you know, we are not mining any, any minerals, we are not producing the battery cells ourselves. We have a premium brand in the market and our customers, they really want to be sure that they actually contribute to mitigating climate change.

17:09So they really want to make sure that they're actually reducing CO2 emissions with the solution that they are getting from us. And that's why we have really systematically kind of thought about each and every step of the value chain and what we can do to really make this happen and to fulfill the expectation of our customers. So as a company, what's the starting point? What's also the starting point that I am getting to work with here? Yeah, so on the one hand side, all of our systems are connected to the Internet. So we are able to really connect, collect all of the data from the battery management system itself in terms of temperatures, voltages, currents and so on per cell block and are able to optimize that system for the customer. Number two is all of the software is designed modularly and can be updated remotely through the Internet connection. So we can later on, you know, we can always improve upon our battery algorithms and then update remotely later on and thereby can improve the system even after five or 10 years in operation.

18:25And I think the third point is that we kind of ensure maximum compatibility. So all of the systems, all of the batteries are backward compatible and everything can be kind of mixed, mixed and matched there. So one example, for example, we can we can use batteries of different cell chemistries in our systems. We can we can we can retrofit our systems and I think this maximum flexibility is really a key enabler for the circular economy. So or in summary, let's say the data and software are the key to enable all of this. So and so with that as a background, I think I'd like to quickly walk you through, let's say, the key main value chain steps and kind of provide some key ideas that we've been working on and that we are implementing at the moment. And the key steps I want to go through is on one side, battery manufacturing and integration or design. Second is then the use the use phase in the widest sense.

19:31And the third one is then the recycling end of life phase. In the very first phase, I think one key thing to highlight, for example, is the design and the sizing of our systems. So. You can have a huge influence on the actual CO2 footprint of your customer by appropriately appropriately sizing the system. So let's say, you know, you want to make sure that the system has a sufficient lifetime. And of course, an easy way to do is just make it 20 percent larger and you will not have a big problem with degradation. But of course, this oversizing really front loads all of the CO2 emissions. And so, you know, a smarter way to do it, you know, would be to size it correctly. And that would really save a lot of CO2 emissions. And then I think this is a kind of an engineering element to it that maybe isn't talked about so much. Of course, nothing is we always ensure proper storage and transport throughout the full supply chain, which which is not easy as well.

20:32Because these batteries are coming across the ocean from from Asia and then they are stored and we integrate them into the system. Then they deliver to the customer and then at the customer there are, you know, in different different locations. There's no no active thermal management and so on. So this is really something to consider to do properly. In the use phase, one key element I would like to highlight is the lifetime maximization. So what do I mean by that? Number one is really think about how to kind of keep degradation linear to avoid aging needs. How to reduce stress factors as much as possible within your application without reducing the utility to your customer. And another important factor, I think, is ensure homogeneous aging within the modules. So, as you know, within a string of battery cells in series, you're always kind of limited by the by the worst cell. And if you have many cells in your modules and in your systems, you want to make sure that they age as as homogeneous as possible.

21:46So battery balancing is a huge topic here. I think that really makes a big difference also for the value that the module still has after you take it out of the field. Another key factor there, I think, is to define define physical and economical end of life. So what does this really mean? In Germany, for example, in our application, we have one challenge, which is that customers driven by the by a certain support scheme from the government. They expect 10 years, 80 percent, so age warranties, but 80 percent, so age obviously doesn't mean that the battery is damaged or actually has reached its end of life. So from our suppliers perspective, for example, something like 60 percent is totally fine. So we need to make sure that we keep those batteries in the field and really try to use them to their actual physical end of life if it's economically feasible. And one key element here, I think, is our what we call this our circular economy platform.

22:50So we really want to make sure we repair all of our modules as far as possible and then we reuse them in the systems. And we are doing that already and we are testing that. And the next step is to really provide a platform where customers can then, for example, trade in their old systems, get new systems or retrofit their systems with more capacity from used modules. And, you know, we'll calculate how much CO2 that saves for the individual customer. But all of that, of course, needs to be enabled by pretty smart battery analytics. So, as you know, when all of the modules kind of age differently and you want to make sure that they kind of fit together and are able to operate together. And that's that's, of course, a big, big challenge. And then at some point, you know, you still have to retire the module. And then the question is, what's next? The first step is to take care of the better logistics, which is very decent, of course, in our case.

23:49And then even if the modules have aged pretty homogeneously and even if you've done everything to really keep them in our portfolio and optimized within our portfolio, maybe there's still some some remaining value before it goes to recycling. So at the moment, we are we're actively looking for firms that might be, you know, able to take apart these modules and still make use of the cells before they then finally go to recycling. Yeah, I think I hope I've been providing some some rough ideas of what we are doing, and I'm more than happy to go into more detail on any of these steps and on our circular economy platform and how we are mentioning to scale this. But I think I've been talking to the void for quite a while now. So how about we start the discussion and then we can see, you know, what's most interesting or where maybe people want to hear more about. That sound good, Simon? Sounds amazing. And you definitely dropped lots of wisdom bombs right there.

24:57I think. And Bavia, how about you or maybe do you have some questions you want to ask right now before bringing other people up? I learned a good bit myself just now. So I'm wrapping my head around that a bit. But yes, if you have questions, please feel free to indicate that and we will call on you. I think we have a few people. No. Yes, people are coming up. Do you have any other question before or otherwise we can. No, no, no, no, no, no. We can definitely start asking some of the folks who have just joined us on stage. Amazing. So let's do that. Milo is one of our veterans. I'm sure you have some good questions. What do you mind? I will leave it now for Mark or Bara. Later I will ask. Sounds good. Mark, do you have any thoughts, any questions? Well, I've been called so I have to speak. My questions are, so you work with stationary battery storage.

25:55I assume you're working with primarily LFP batteries. And that, not NMC, and you can tell me otherwise. But there, there's not a lot of, you know, and I'm, my expertise is more on the recycling. There's, there's very little recycling potential, at least in the median term for LFP batteries. And that itself could add to the carbon footprint because there's not much recycling value if that's LFP. So, let's say an NMC or other type of a nickel or cobalt based batteries. Those have more potential for recyclability, but there's a larger, uh, up front carbon footprint. So, I'm just curious on that end to start with, Martin. Thank you very much for bringing this up, Mark. I think this is a really excellent point and we've been thinking about this a lot. So, to give you a quick, um, background. So, I guess the, the good thing, in, let's say the good thing is that, uh, yeah, we're active since 10 years. But for the last 10 years, we've only been using, uh, NMC and NCA chemistries in our application.

27:08Um, and, um, we've only started using LFP, uh, last year. So, hopefully when, when LFP reaches end of life, you know, there's gonna, there's, there will have been much more innovation on, uh, different recycling processes for LFP as well. I'm sure. I mean, I'm reading lots of papers on, on, on things that, uh, that are proving there on, on that front. And maybe you can give them a reality check mark. Um, but, um, I, I generally agree. I mean, at the moment it seems from what, what we are hearing in industry that, um, with LFP, it's, it's definitely tricky. Um, but yeah, however, like the systems that are reaching end of life in, in our application, I'm mostly NMC and NCA. And, um, maybe just one more comment on that as well. So people are often wondering, ah, stationary storage, why are you using, why are you not using LFP? I mean, honestly speaking, you know, in terms of degradation and performance, um, there's always many factors that go into that, that I feel like are being a bit overlooked by overly focusing on just the cathode chemistry.

28:11So it's not just about the chemistry where of course, uh, FP is less prone to, to degradation from cycling, but it's also about, uh, manufacturing quality and, um, the cell design and the BMS design. Yeah. And, uh, since our start, we were able to work only with tier one cell manufacturers and, uh, their recommendation was using NMC in the past. And, and sometimes NCA and, um, you know, if you design the cell correctly and if you, um, optimize your BMS correctly. So one simple example is just, you know, obviously producing the voltage band that you're operating in. Um, these, these cell chemistry still allow you to get, um, more than sufficient, um, lifetime out of them in our application. Yeah. And I think that's a, that's a, that's a popular misconception. Let's say that all of the stationary is just LFP. And if you do go to other stationary applications like utility scale, there's also a broad mixture, yeah, because for example, um, land is getting more expensive.

29:19And some of them say, Hey, if I'm using LFP, I, you know, I'm paying much more in terms of land, land use. Um, and there's other considerations as well because applications are really different now, whether you do frequency regulation where you only need a few cycles, you know, or just a narrow SOC band or whether you do, um, you know, PV integration, let's say. So, yeah, so much on that. I had, I had one more question or follow up question with that regarding, um, I know your focus for what you've described is the carbon footprint, uh, value chain for your customers. Now I'm curious how much you care about other, um, ESG concerns, you know, particularly regard to cobalt because ultimately cobalt comes from Congo and Congo is, is Congo and it's a work in progress. And, you know, whatever you tell your customers, things are, things are how they are there and never going to be sweet and rosy, uh, in the near term.

30:18And how do you communicate that your customers and you get them to accept that? Sorry, I was mute. So another very good point. And we do have these discussions, um, our, you know, customer center has these discussions with our customers on a daily basis. People are very aware of cobalt and, uh, the potential issues. And, um, yeah, all we can, we can say really at this point is that, you know, we are trying to work with tier one only and, uh, relying on the, uh, on, on their pre-qualification processes. Um, and, you know, there's lots of initiatives on improving the situation on the ground, but, you know, obviously, uh, as you say, it's a work in progress and that's what, you know, we are open about as well. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. And also, I mean, very interesting actually talking about my Martin, maybe one quick follow-up question on this as well as, you know, looking at the recycling fund, which has an interesting session.

31:24And this, this week, yeah. And, and, and the BatteryMBA was one of the, you know, well-known recycling companies. And I think the person put it quite well to say essentially, right? Like if you have, um, you know, if you have, um, um, LCO, right? Like in consumer electronics, you get money for yourselves, money for your batteries for recycling, right? So as a recycling company would actually pay money for that to get the batteries. When I'm C and CA, it's kind of like plus minus zero. So like, you don't have to pay anything to the recycling company, but also a recycling company wouldn't give any money to you, but you have LFP, you know, you have to pay the recycling company to, to, to kind of process them. So I'm also just wondering, I mean, I read some interesting article and we're looking into maybe even a case study on this as well, like kind of this, what's the overall economics of different stock ministries?

32:09Because on the one hand, right, like if you now, let's say, go to LFP from an environmental standpoint and ethical standpoint, you know, have some advantages, especially, you know, the cobalt front and also maybe can get lower, you know, emissions if you have already chemistry and things. But then how do you, how do you balance the costs? Because now for an, let's say for high, you know, high nickel or something, you'd maybe don't have to pay afterwards. But now if you have lots of LFP batteries, and then people don't want to, you know, recycle them because they wouldn't get, actually have to pay money for it to, to make it happen. Then you have lots of waste. It doesn't get processed. And if there's no government regulation in place, we're just kind of trying to look at, you know, the overall impacts. And I'm not sure you've ever looked at any of these topics at all, or, and I guess the recycling costs, do you have to recycle the batteries or do the consumer have to recycle the batteries?

32:51What's the legal situation? I don't know. Do you know? Yeah, lots of questions. Let me try to disentangle that a little bit. So, first of all, how it has been up to now for us in Germany is that with us bringing these batteries to the country, we are also taking on the obligation to ensure end of life handling and recycling. How it is typically done in our industry so far is that there's something called the GRS. It's German, German, yeah, a public company, let's say, where you basically pay upfront. So when you bring the battery into the country, you pay a fee upfront, and then they take on the obligation, and they ensure that the battery is recycled according to, you know, the European and German law standards. However, we are, yeah, we are at the moment discussing how we can get more involved with that part of the value chain to kind of steer that ourselves. But this is how it's typically done in the industry.

33:58And that's how we've typically been doing it in the past. So we do have the responsibility, not the customer. And I think that's probably also a good thing. And that's true for all batteries, I think, above two kilowatt hours or something. And, okay, so that's number one. Then in terms of optimizing over the full life cycle. So, of course, discounted cash flows, so everything that happens 15, 20 years in the future, you know, you tend to be less worried about. Or the actual impact is going to be less just because of discounted cash flows. But, of course, we've been trying to weigh this. And that's also one reason why we've only been going towards LFP now. Because, you know, in the past, there was, it was very uncertain, let's say, whether there's a way. But now that the automotive industry is going towards LFP, at least for their entry segment cars, you know, there's going to be a different volume, let's say. And I'm sure there's going to be good solutions in terms of recycling also in the future for LFP when this becomes relevant for us.

35:17And up to now, you know, I think I've highlighted a lot of the points that we are doing during the use phase. So, we really want to make sure we keep them in the field as much as possible. And I think that's the most important thing and becomes even more important for LFP. And also, hopefully, you know, the LFP degradation characteristics allow us to keep it linear even longer and keep them in the field even longer. Super insightful. Thanks so much, Martin. Maybe just one really quick one on this one. This GIS you mentioned, right? Like, do they make a difference between LFP and NMC and NCA? But for them, it's always the same fee just based on the size or they're looking at chemistry. Do you know? I think it's a flat fee. I can look it up though, afterwards and let you know. Maybe for the podcast. Yeah, it's great. Again, it's just something we actually could. I never thought about it. But yeah, it's a fascinating topic.

36:13I think so far it was per kilogram. So, chemistry agnostic and just by weight. And therefore, we do pay a bit more for LFP. Makes sense. Thanks. Baurav, would you like to go next to your question? Any thoughts on the topic? Yeah. So, thank you so much for the discussion. It's really eye-opening discussion for us. I just want to know the main thing is that because people talking about the second life application in the energy storage. But while you are talking, you are just saying that when there is a land issue, like if you are using a new battery, it's like the energy density is high so that you can store more energy. When you are using new batteries in the secondary storage. But people are saying that automobile batteries, when they go into some kind of degradation or like the loss of the SOH and they can be set up in the stationary energy storage systems. So, what do you prefer? Are you using mostly new batteries in your stationary storage units or are you using second life batteries or is it a mix?

37:18So, what is it? So, we are only using new batteries for our new customers and we are using, I would call them second life or used batteries, but only within our portfolio later on. So, when a system has been operating and we have a battery from our own portfolio that's been at one customer and then it's being repaired or refurbished and then we can use it another customer. That's the only time we do second life, if you will. So, on the topic of second life, as it's typically thought about from, let's say you have an automotive, you have a car, you have a battery and then at some point you take the battery out of the car and put it into stationary. We are not doing that and I am pretty sure we will not be doing that anytime soon. And maybe I can elaborate on that a bit more because I've been actually also thinking about this during my PhD already. And so, a couple of thoughts on this.

38:16So, number one, it's always best, of course, to keep the battery in the application that it has been originally designed for and keep it in that high value bespoke application as long as possible. So, if you have a car, for example, I'm looking at Volkswagen's car portfolio, you take an ID.4, ID.3. You can buy it with 80 kilowatt hours or you can buy it with 55 or 60 kilowatt hours or something. And that just depends on your preference and your willingness to pay. And what do you need? So, do you often drive longer distances or not? Or do you mostly use it in a city? And let's say you have the 80 kilowatt hour version and then the battery degrades and you only have 80% or 70% of that capacity left. That doesn't mean you have to get rid of the battery or the car at all, right? You can just give the car to a person that has a driving preference where, you know, the same person that originally purchased the 60 kilowatt hour version of the ID.4.

39:19So, it's just about finding the right person with the right preference as long as the battery is intact. And then that person can drive the battery, can drive the car with that battery until, you know, it's not fit for his preferences or her preferences anymore. So, I think, you know, that's a very easy example where you just show it's not going to be the normal case. I think that you have a car, you drive it and then after you lose 20% of the capacity, the battery has to be taken out and do something else. The other thing is, of course, repairing and reusing it in the same application. So, let's say there's a cell defect or something, it doesn't mean you have to take the pack out and use it in stationery or you can still use the pack in the car. You just need to repair the cell. So, there's lots of lots of things that will enable to keep these packs in cars for a long time and maybe even outlasting the car.

40:17And then, you know, we're talking about a different type of second life case then because these batteries will be degraded much more than you might expect already. And then the question is, okay, what can you do then? Okay. And then it comes down to economics. So, first of all, I think one very important consideration is be aware of the dynamics. So, let's say you do have this thing now, you have this pack from the EV and let's say it's 10 years in and let's say you take it out. Now, this module you're taking out has to compete with a new module that's having 10 years newer technology, 10 years better performance and so on and so forth. And as we know, you know, lithium-ion batteries as a platform technology are still improving quite a lot on all fronts on the chemistry side, on the manufacturing side, on the battery intelligence, battery management system side. There's improvements all along the supply chain. So, you're essentially competing with very old technology against very new technology.

41:21And then the key for the economic case then is how much is the repurposing itself going to cost you? So, at the moment, it's still typically, I want to say rather expensive because you have to, you know, disassemble it to a certain degree. You have to then test it and re-rate it. And only then you can integrate it into your stationary system. And the question is, what can we do in the next years to kind of bring down that part of the cost by, for example, having a full data history as we have for our systems? We can do the reuse and the second life within our portfolio because we have the perfect, let's say, battery health passport for all of our systems. We have all of the data and we can optimize that. That's not necessarily typical for a car at the moment, but we will get there, I'm sure. And that will reduce the cost and that will enable at least second life for some applications.

42:18And then that, I think, is the third point I want to make. Beware of the application. So, second life is not going to be equally well for all of the applications. And that's one of the reasons why I'm not seeing it so much for our segment of the market. There might be applications like frequency regulation also, which is really soft on the battery, let's say, where second life makes more sense. Or, you know, as we see in China where they are used for backup of telco towers or so. So it's not such an intense application. And so that's the third thing. Beware of the application. So, you know, there surely is going to be second life. Maybe not as people always or as I'm often hearing about on a high level. But, you know, there surely is going to be something. But then you have to really think through all of the steps that I kind of aligned out. Sorry, that was a very long answer.

43:10Yeah, that's true. That's true. Because when I'm when I started writing some kind of articles and blogs, because it's not possible to find the market fit, but the hype is very high. But we can't see directly the car from stationary stationary to recycling. It's not happening. So I'm just curious to know. And one more thing. When we are talking to second life people and when they are purchasing batteries, they find a very hard time in determining the cost of purchase for the second life battery. So is there any standard metrics or parameters you are following to calibrate the cost of the second life batteries? Well, as we are not purchasing second life batteries from the automotive industry, I can't speak to that on a high level. I would say it's always the trade off between what's going to be the cost or revenue from recycling. So do I get money or do I have to pay money to get recycled versus I can defer that cost or revenue by going to a second life and that you have to compare with buying and I'm buying a new battery versus I'm buying a second life battery for my application.

44:20And then you can I mean, it's just simple optimization, right? So I think it's, you know, it's a complex problem, but the calculation is pretty straightforward. You just have to take into account recycling and you have to take into account the alternative to getting a second life battery, which is purchasing a new battery. Yeah, thanks. I mean, okay, let me be one more point on that, of course. So I think that's the key is then, you know, to assess what's the remaining useful life of your second life battery. And there, of course, there has to be some intelligence that goes into estimating that because, you know, the question is kind of how long can you keep aging linear before you hit the aging knee or can you even avoid the aging knee? And that's going to determine the remaining useful life of your second life battery. And that, of course, you have to have to be doing. Otherwise, you can't compare anything. Thanks for that bit of information.

45:21I, I guess the question has occurred to me. So maybe I'll throw that in there. And of course, folks have more questions. Please continue to raise your hand. Give us a shout. What, you know, speaking on like recycling and reuse, what types of policies or like legal structures do you either see in place or think we should have in place to drive some of these practices that you've been talking about? Maybe the main one being keeping batteries in their in their original application. I guess the major policy framework we are seeing in Europe is the new battery regulation, which intends to improve the CO2 footprint. I think there the key point is going to be to not to not make it too complicated and to really very likely, I would say, focus on the upstream there. Yeah, so focus on the CO2, kilogram CO2 per kilowatt hour of battery produced. And I think the incentives for a second life and vehicle to grid, they have to probably come from the market.

46:34Otherwise, it's going to get pretty tricky if you want to estimate how exactly you will be using the battery in the future. And maybe you can get some retroactive carbon credits also if you don't do second life or vehicle to grid. It's going to be pretty messy to regulate that. So my key concern there is, I would say, over regulation or, you know, making sure to not make it more complicated than necessary and leave some of these things to the markets, let's say. Yeah, I think that's my key point at this point. Thank you. Let's see who's next. I believe it was Katerina. Hi, thanks guys for putting me up on stage. So obviously, there's a lot of elements here and moving parts where, you know, we all need to work on each and every one of them. But Martin, what would you say are the key ones, like the low hanging fruit, like which ones should, you know, the industry in general, like which ones should we start with to look at to become more circular?

47:45Very good question. Yeah. So I have today consciously focused on on our role as an integrator in the space active in the downstream. So there, I would say the most important, the most impactful thing is to really focus optimizing the usage during the use phase in terms of degradation and really enabling reusing modules. For the same application, but for different customers. I think that really enables us to keep it in the loop as long as possible before we then have to go to to recycling and there. Yeah, the focus is really on on data analytics and building right between models to enable that on the larger scale. The big chunks, as I pointed out before, are improving cell manufacturing, in particular drying, improving cathode production because of the high temperatures that we need there. And yeah, and then of course materials, materials extraction. But there I am not the expert and not aware of exactly what the best measures are and so on. Okay, thanks.

49:12I believe next we have Esteban. Perhaps Esteban is not ready with the question yet. No worries. I think next we have Juho. Hi Martin, and thank you for the industry insight. I have just one quick note on LFP that you also said that you have started using it more. And I was just wondering, does it directly mean that when you basically don't want to recycle LFP, so basically you would want to find it second life applications for as long as possible? Yeah, I think at the moment, as pointed out before, we need to make sure we postpone it as long as possible. But then of course it will still be recycled. The question is to what extent and where and so on. But of course, according to EU regulation, it will be recycled and at some point we'll then either have to pay for it or will be paid for it. But since at the moment it more looks like we have to pay for it, we want to of course postpone that as much as possible.

50:31Fantastic. Thank you. I'm just looking at also make sure anybody who wants to still ask a question now might be a good time. So maybe I'll just quickly reset the room. And we're now about 53 minutes in the session, which means we're a bit over half time. We're going to run until half past and I see more people raising their hands. We're going to bring them up. And also I know some other people are trying to be up as well before. And yeah, today we're discussing the topic of battery circular economy in practice. Dr. Martin Beuser, who works with the Hager Group and has also lots of experience from his PhD and all the other great experiences I've been mentioning earlier on today. And yeah, maybe also a quick one, just if people join, please make sure you unmute yourself. If it helps also everyone on the stage who's not speaking, please make sure you mute yourself. Just because sometimes we hear this background noise and kind of you have this feedback loops, which are pleasant to the listeners.

51:34Also all these listeners who are going to listen to this on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all these other platforms. Maybe just a really quick plug as well. If you listen to one of them, please make sure to give us a like, give a comment that really helps us also to increase our reach and increases the number of people who can listen to these insights, which I think there are many of them today as usual. Great. Maybe with this, I see Mariana, you're on your stage. Do you have a question you'd like to ask? Any thoughts? Hi. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Martin, for the insights. I love some of the, well, all the topics, but there are some that I, not oversizing. Yeah, perfect. Battery balancing, of course, and data also from batteries that you have the data that you can having a second life and you can, let's say, ensure that that possibility, no? For the battery. But I have also some questions about the CO2 carbon footprint.

52:39As you mentioned, as you mentioned, you have from Asia, the supply from the battery. If you also have the possibility to come nearby Europe, and if that would be possible, how is from the carbon footprint? It would be, let's say, 20% less than when it comes from the supply from Asia. That's one of the other topics. The other topic, the other topic that I, if I could, may, is that nowadays there are several countries that are subsidizing. Then what are your thoughts about after the countries don't subsidize the batteries? If this still remains so exponential in growth from batteries or not? And the last, from my side, is the battery passport. It comes from the ASG parameters, no? That one question would be, yeah, if you explain that you are going with a tier one, let's say, with the best of the market manufacturer. But, yeah, the ASG parameters are looking not only on one topic, there are several topics, no? There's also social and governance.

54:09And if you face that, you are thinking about having several battery manufacturings, or if there is a somehow, if you saw some problem. And also from the battery passport, if you have been involved on that battery passport. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mariano. Great questions. Let me break them down one by one. So number one was production in Europe. I think in terms of the CO2 footprint impact of that, we have to, again, look at the full supply chain. So the question is, what is happening in Europe then? Just the cell production and the module assembly, or also the cathode production, or also maybe some of the chemicals refining. So that's just what you have to take into account. And then you just have to compare, of course, the electricity mixes that are used for the individual steps. So, for example, if you do everything the same and then, you know, get the batteries, for example, from Poland, you know, you might be actually getting worse in terms of your CO2 footprint compared to getting your batteries from Korea.

55:26Because Poland has a very cold, heavy grid mix. The only additional thing then to consider is, of course, the CO2 footprint from logistics. But compared to all of the other steps, this is really small. So all of the other steps have much higher impact than the logistics itself, because, you know, these batteries are coming in huge container ships and huge mass. So I think, yeah, the key thing is really, again, coming back to my original point, look at the full supply chain and see what a localization, let's say, in Europe does actually bring you in terms of CO2 footprint. But, yeah, I mean, with that said, we are seeing some really good examples with, for example, Northvolt or Moro batteries in Scandinavia, both of them, where they ensure that definitely cell production is going to be much, much greener maybe than in other places. And I think that's definitely something that is really interesting. And at the end of the day, yeah, our priority is to work with tier one and hopefully we'll get also tier one access, which is closer to our hometown.

56:35And, yeah, I think we're looking forward to that. Then the next point you made were on subsidies. Okay. So if we look at the overall battery market, the key driver are still electric vehicles with more than 80% of the battery demand coming from electric vehicles. And I don't really see that trend reversing or losing steam, even if subsidies will be coming down in the coming years. We are reaching cost parity, even upfront cost parity. Maybe it's going to be delayed a little bit due to the high materials prices at the moment. But at the end of the day, the trend is clear. And I think even if subsidies will go down a little bit, it's not going to be a major issue. I'd rather focus on making sure we subsidize the right things. So maybe it's not the best idea to subsidize the cars, but really focus on the infrastructure side of things. But anyway, so I'm not seeing a big problem there when it comes to our application.

57:41So the stationary storage, Decentral, there, it's really country specific. Again, in Germany, the trend is clear, irrespective of subsidies. Actually, subsidies have been going down for quite a while already and the market is taking up. So also when I'm looking at our customers, you know, they're mostly driven by, you know, changes in their preferences. So they want to drive electric vehicles. They want to then charge that from their own PV from the rooftop. And then they're also thinking about batteries to balance all of that out. And, you know, that trend is irreversible. However, there might be other markets also in our application like Italy, where subsidies have been really, really overwhelming last year. And, you know, there might be some kind of slowdown when that goes back a little bit. But overall, I think the trends are clear. The third point was on the battery passport. So, yeah, the battery passport has many elements. And as I mentioned before, we have implemented a battery passport for us, for our systems already in terms of all of the data and so on.

58:54But of course, the battery passport also has the element of tracing where the materials are coming from there. I think, yeah, I mean, there's still some time to fulfill the obligations that the EU was putting forward there. This is very much then driven again by the automotive industry, I think. But yeah, there's more to be done because what I can can say from our side, we don't have the full transparency at that point that we would like. And we will only get it through the pressure from the automotive industry. Otherwise, our market is just too small. I mean, stationary is maybe 10% of the global market and then residential is much less and European residential is again much less. So we are really a small fish, if you will. And that's why the pressure really comes or is being built up by the automotive industry. And I think that's good. And I'm very sure we will see more transparency in the coming years. Can I say some opinion?

59:56Yes. Please. All those subsidies, all those regulations, they are against the market. We needed about 100 times more battery production. Demand. There is demand in one decade to produce at least 20 terawatt hours of the batteries. So when the government starts to intervene in the free market, they are slowing down everything. Slowing down the investment, slowing down the production and slowing down the companies to be able to build supply value chain. Then the government will start to pick up winners and losers. My definition is distorting the market. So all those passports, all those also on the other side subsidies are against the market. Let's remark, we should let the market to choose winners and losers. Otherwise, we are not going to be able to produce 20 terawatt hours of the batteries. Thank you, Mark, for your response. And also, thank you, Mylos, for your topic. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I think next we had gotten. I grew up. I grew up. I'm sorry for meeting your matters, but I think it was very loud.

1:01:43Do you want to say something again? Yes, I wanted to. One more point. I grew up in socialism, in communism in Czechoslovakia. So I know the socialism or any intervention of the government or statism or state capitalism, like we have it now in China or some other countries doesn't work. It works. You cannot build the big companies. You cannot build the companies which are disruptors of the market. And we need disruptors. And yeah, interesting perspective for sure. Also from the background you just mentioned. I think another one we have on the stage is Gautam. Do you have any thoughts, any questions you would like to ask or raise? Gautam, are you with us? Maybe it's also busy right now. It happens. But also maybe a big invitation if anybody else, like listening to this right now, wants to come up and ask questions. Sorry Simon. I mean, I was looking for the options. Thank you. So yeah. Hi Martin. So thank you for the insights over circular economy.

1:03:12So this was regarding recycling. A few days ago, I read a post saying that recycled lithium-ion batteries can perform better than the new ones. I mean, my question here is like to what extent this can happen and contribute and what are your thoughts on this? Very interesting perspective you're bringing up. I've read that paper as well. And I mean, for sure, whether it's going to be better or not, at least, I think the good news is that we don't have to be afraid of using recycled materials in our batteries in the future. And, you know, as long as the performance doesn't decrease, that's probably good news. I'm not aware about this particular process. And I mean, I'm sure it's going to also take a while until it's commercialized. So I can't really further comment on that now. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. Thanks, Martin. Thanks, Scott. Yeah, it's a fascinating paper. I mean, I think it feels like every day I have someone talk to me about this and also very curious and, you know, looking at these kind of things.

1:04:25And I think one thing which really shows also there's definitely a different room for innovation. I think that's probably also an interest of all of us and that there is further innovation. I'm just curious, is there anybody who has seen anything, read anything more about this or is there any other thoughts about either this topic or any of the other topics Martin has mentioned? This is also for anybody who's already on stage or anybody who's listening right now. I had to follow up to the discussion we just had about recycled batteries. So, you know, I actually went to the Worcester Polytechnic and saw this data literally five years ago. And it looked amazing five years ago, but still no commercial process. So I don't think this is surprising that at a small scale that a with a very refined input that a recycled battery materials can be better than a commercial, robust, maybe mine based materials. I'd really like to see a large scale materials produced in an actual battery pack that's driven in an actual car to be compared to recycled materials.

1:05:38That's really what I want to see. That's an excellent point. I guess that's something that goes through the full value chain batteries all the time. There's always a lot of hype originally and then you read a nature paper and then it takes 15 years until that's until you see that commercially in the car. So I guess be aware of the timescales is always important in the battery industry. Absolutely. And Crystal, so good to see you. Yeah, nice to see you, everyone. So I guess I just had one question that's a little bit maybe obscure, but a lot of people focus on the active materials and recycling. But what happens to the binder material? So when you talk about fluorinated binders like your PVDF or your PTFE's, what type of progress has been done on the binder components in recycling batteries? So I guess you have some thoughts. Otherwise, I'd also be a marketer. Yeah, I'm sure. Mark is the marketer guy to answer that one.

1:06:58I all I know about that is from research papers. So I think maybe Mark can comment. Yeah, I can comment. So the reality is right now the binder typically a PVDF is not recycled. Again, it's not a very large component of the actual battery. You know, with the form it comes out of, it's just very difficult to for it to come out. You know, if it's shredded, it's assembled, shredded. It's just typically not. It's not in the form to really reuse or recycle. And the intrinsic value is probably negative at that point. So and a lot of recycling processes have thermal treatment, which may in fact degrade that or even burn that or emulsivize it. So, yeah, there's really no there's a lot of talk of recycling that, but there's no actual recycling of that at this point. Yeah, I guess, you know, that was my biggest question, because, you know, there have been some papers reported showing where, you know, I guess, hydrometallurgy has been used for recycling battery materials.

1:08:21And so when you talk about PVDF, yeah, you could probably dissolve that in water. But as we start moving towards more dry electrode fabrication methods, you know, what are we going to do with PTFE or other types of fluoropolymers when we get ready to recycle the battery? Well, the reality is these, if they're, you know, fluorine based, that could end up depending on the flow sheet in the atmosphere, maybe it's captured in the back house. So, yeah, obviously, fluorinated compounds should be avoided in future research. And that's a bigger thing to worry about than trying to figure out how to, you know, recycle it right now. That's my opinion. So I do have one question regarding the recycling part. So we are finding a lot of new innovations happening in the form factor, let's say, different types of cells type, you know, like cylindrical blade type. Now the cubical cells are coming and various form factors are there. So what do you think any, do you have any idea or any insights on which type of form factor will be very easy for recycling or dismantling?

1:09:34Do you have any comments on it in terms of commercial perspective, like the cost on something maybe? Everybody feels like having some cost on this. I mean, now we need for free everyone to jump in, right? Like we're now in the free flow. I would say the last 15 minutes tend to be very open to you. Yeah, I would like to go back on the CO2 prints because I'm always pretty skeptical when companies report them. But I would like to know if what do you think? How comparable are the CO2 footprints for the cells which companies give out? And do the companies actually currently compete with their battery CO2 footprints? Why I ask this because I'm from Scandinavia and I know that the big sell point for Scandinavian batteries will be that they will be low CO2 footprint. But is there a correct competition with this? There will be probably in the future, but is there correct? I haven't seen it so far. So as I mentioned before, we don't even get the full transparency at this point.

1:10:44So at the moment, it's also, yeah, it's a soft factor and it's definitely not, I would say, a key point in terms of the competition at the moment. However, this might change with the upcoming regulation. The key question then, however, is how is proper carbon accounting insured? So we need to make sure that then results will be comparable and that the methods are aligned upon and all of that. And I think that's, you know, it's going to be quite a big task. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Martin. Any other topics anybody wants to ask either Martin or the room? Maiano. Thank you. Yeah, I have a question to Martin in general. First of all, I saw that design for replace is not that biggest nowadays in the battery field. Let's say there are the design that the design from the cell and the module are not aware for replace, not easy to replace, let's say. No, you can go, you can change a cell, but they are not that easy to replace.

1:12:10That's the one, if someone has thought about that. The other topic that, yeah, from the full life cycle, what would be, let's say, if we want to prioritize the life cycle, what would be the prior one, prior two, prior three, to come out with for the life cycle? Thank you. Okay. Okay, so yeah, let me answer on your first question regarding building or manufacturing for replace. So what we are doing is we are ensuring that all of the modules that we are getting from different tier one suppliers and even from the same suppliers are compatible in terms of the size and so on so that they do fit into our system and that they are all compatible from a software perspective. So we are able to kind of switch around and mix and match within the full portfolio and a lot of effort on our side, especially in the software side goes into enabling this. So that's, I think, one key element. If you go one level below to the cell level, of course, that gets much more complicated because you're now talking about cell contacting and that, of course, is a challenge and very different between the manufacturers.

1:13:32The second question, I'm not quite sure if I fully understood it. Maybe somebody else can answer or comment on that. I'm not sure if I can put it either. May I, can you maybe repeat the second question? Could this be possible? Yes, yes, of course. Life cycle assessment. Life cycle assessment. What would we, let's say, the pre-year one, if you have to ensure to having, let's say, you want to ensure the life cycle assessment to the best practice when you need to face when, okay, you have two types of batteries, two types of chemistry, two types of, let's say, battery manufacturing, and you have the data of that. Let's say you have the data, and you need to think, okay, better if we can recycle easily, if I need to choose two chemistries or not. Better to, that is, long life, that it stays more. The same as maybe that you face, you are facing one year ago when you decided to come with the LFP from NNC.

1:14:49And the life cycle, the general from recycling, second life, and from also, if you are thinking also from mining side, all this life cycle, what are you, what you, Prio, one, Prio two, let's say, I prioritize. So, my company prioritize the facility for recycling or not, or second life, or let's say that they are not a huge impact on the land from the mining sector or work. That's what the topic would be, what are the Prio's for life cycle in, let's say, in your company, no? Okay, yeah, I understand. So, I would say priority number one is that we can ensure the performance and lifetime that the customers expect in our application. And recycling is only a second-order priority. So, as I said before, I think there's lots of things we can do before it's getting to recycling. And that's why the recyclability in and of itself is not a key decisive factor when we make decisions at the moment. Also, because we're talking about something that then happens 10, 20 years in the future.

1:16:19Thank you, Martin. Thank you for your question. Thank you. And I think, Pahav, was this clapping? Yeah, actually, the question got lost on the queue. So, my question is that which form factor will be a very easy form factor to do recycling? Because for shedding the batteries and things like that, is the small batteries good or the big blade batteries or the prismatic cell is good? I just want to know any comments on it. Martin, is there anything you came across in your PhD or in your company or anybody else? I think we are still in the middle. We have the 10 years to develop the technologies for the recycling. We have some promising technologies. Like they know to recycle 95% of the battery materials today. Until those batteries which we are producing them today, they will come from the recycling. We will have time to develop those technologies. So, the market will show us which… We don't know to answer the question today. Which batteries will be easier and better to recycle?

1:17:43But from the first principle thinking, the materials in the batteries are much more concentrated than materials in the ground. So, we should be able to recycle. Recycling of the batteries is a much better mine than any mine in the world. Thank you, Martin. No. Maiaan, do you want to say something on that? Yes. Not on that. But I would ask Martin if there are future chemistry that are looking for. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. Martin, did you have something as well? No. Maiaan, do you want to say something on that? Yes. Not on that. But I would ask Martin if there are future chemistry that are looking for. Let's say sodium-ion, solid save batteries. Thank you. Thank you. Very good point. Yeah, we are definitely following all of these trends very, very closely. So, at the moment, we don't necessarily see. So, at the moment, we will continue to focus on the lithium-ion platform. So, sodium-ion, I think, is certainly something that can be interesting for some parts of the stationary sector.

1:19:01Not so much for our application at this point due to efficiency in particular. But within the lithium-ion platform, we are looking at different routes. At the moment, it doesn't seem that solid-state is necessarily going to be a great fit for our application. So, in terms of cycle life and so on. At least not in the short term. However, what we are seeing as improvements in lifetime, for example, through single crystal cathode materials and other ideas, let's say, around pre-diviation and so on that will enable a much longer lifetime of the batteries. And I think that is something that we will look at least for a certain part of our portfolio. And, yeah, I think that's the key element. And otherwise, yeah, we are still talking about the known cathode materials. So, on the NMC front, it's still moving towards higher nickel and LFP, I think. Most of those new chemistries or new technologies, they are not new. They are old technologies, which we know them for 30, 50 years.

1:20:23We just think that we can break through them now. So, until they are not breaking through, we cannot count on them. And even if they will break through, they will start in the niche market. So, the core technology, 10 years from now, it's going to be lithium-ion battery. And the graphite will be like the 95% of the market. And so, because we need to exponentially grow battery production. And it takes also time to establish the supply chain. It means that it takes time to build the battery mega plants and then it takes time to build the mines, build the processing plants and everything else. It means that lithium-ion battery, in the worst case scenario, 10 years from now, it will be like 95% of the market. In the best case scenario for lithium-ion batteries, it will be like 99% of the market. Yeah, maybe also our strategy in particular, why we are closely watching this. At the end of the day, we'll see what we can buy.

1:21:40And we'll work with the tier one suppliers. And you need to make sure you can reliably produce that at a very high and homogeneous quality. And that's really the key. And you need to be able to warrant it and have the balance sheet behind it. So we'll see what the tier ones are bringing out for us. But yeah. One more point. I think the more important is evolution in the battery for the next 10 years. Revolution. Yeah, I agree. 100%. Fantastic. Thank you. And we have now two new editions and we have five minutes. So let's keep it to the time. But I think Nareen, really excited to have you on board and maybe have some thoughts on some of the federal developments in the US, it sounds like. Hi, Simon. Thank you for giving me the floor. I'm Nareen. I help startups to apply for federal funding as we are funding in particularly. Basically, batteries, renewable energies is very key for government. And I think any startups who wants to get involved with batteries, they should consider federal funds as a part of their fundraising strategy.

1:22:56Because it gives you a chance to get pre-seed money without diluting any equity. I would be happy to have a one-on-one session with anyone who is interested in. Thank you. Thank you, Nareen. Yeah, I mean, definitely government is important from an initial standpoint. Maybe after that, the separate chat, we also have something called the Battery Den, which is something we haven't done this year yet. But lastly, we did two of them. Just lots of fun where we have battery startups pitching and we have like a group of investors and tech experts, et cetera, and giving their kind of feedback. And it's a little fun. So happy to chat about this separately. Ankur, great to have you. Thank you. You would like to have? Yeah. Hello, everyone. I have recently I read regarding the deep sea mining for building EV batteries. So is there anyone has the opinion regarding the same like will it be sustainable approach for building the batteries? I don't think that we can count on that because deep sea mining is here already for several years, but there is no deep sea mining.

1:24:09It means that we cannot count on that. Okay. Thank you, Mays and Ankur. I think maybe also quick, I mean, maybe I was wondering, maybe you wanted to share some of the discussion we just had on the BatteryMBA by any chance or if you have any other thoughts. But I feel this question is literally something we discussed this week. Yeah, I was going to say that I think that there was some Sweden with the startup yet, but there was some Sweden startup who's going to start to deep sea mining of lithium. Now I just cannot, I couldn't find it quickly and don't remember the name. But I think a great point what came up in the BatteryMBA was that we have plenty of lithium, but the concentration of lithium is too low in many places. So I think that's, that's, it will be a big challenge in the lithium and they, and big point which was raised up is that there can be a supply shortages in the near future before we get the production up.

1:25:11But I also have one more question for Martin quickly. I really liked that you are very keen to degradation that you keep checking on it. I want to ask, how are your sales doing on average? Are they performing better than you expected? Did you like overkill the battery? Like how are they doing on degradation wise? Or if you are allowed to. Yeah. I mean, what I can say is from a portfolio perspective, I think. I think they're doing better than people expected in the past. But of course there, there is differences and there, there is a spread, let's say. So degradation, as you know, it depends on quite, quite some factors and it's not all the same, but on average, before you, I think it's doing, doing much better than we would have originally thought, which is, which is good news and which is in line with what you typically hear also from electric vehicles and so on. And the more we learn about batteries and how they degrade, the more optimistic I think we can be.

1:26:16You know, in the case of the lithium, like many other critical materials for the batteries, you are right. We have a lot of lithium on the earth. The problem is concentration, but there is also problem with the technologies, which I believe we will solve. Like we cannot, we are not producing lithium right now from the major deposits of the lithium in the clay, because we don't have the technologies for that. Right now we are producing only lithium from the brine and lithium from the rock. It means that the technologies are playing also a big role in the lead. Yeah. I agree. Amazing. Thank you, Milo. And maybe just really quick, I said, Gary, if you have a quick question, we are almost at the end. I'm pretty much finishing in about a minute or so. But Gary, if you have a quick question or any thoughts, please add it now. Yeah. Just a quick question for Miloš. Do you think the battery industry is recession proof, considering we have an impending recession sometime this year?

1:27:29Yes, I think the battery industry is recession proof, because the need for the batteries is exponentially growing. It means that exponentially growing. It means that the production of the batteries are also exponentially growing. We don't have enough batteries, mostly because we don't have enough material to produce those batteries. And you'll feed on the prices growing up astronomically on the lithium and everything else. So, yes, it's recession proof. Great. Thanks. Just a quick question. Okay, very quick. Also, one quick thing I just want to add. Nothing here is financial advice. It's always an important one. And of course, there's all individual opinions and thoughts, but there's no official advice for many of the companies or individuals. Thank you. Yeah. So, like in the cathode material, like the layered materials are dominating the market, for example, NMC, LFE and all those things. So, what will the future of polyanine materials? Will it come into the picture in the coming years or will it remain as a research in academia?

1:28:42Ankur, what kind of material? The polyanine materials. Polyanine cathode materials like phosphate, sulfate, these types of materials. You mean like for electrolytes or like for what kind of materials? Yeah, cathode. For the cathode. Like Na2F2SO4 wholethrides, these types of polyanine frameworks. I think you're meaning like those high voltages cut out materials. I think one big problem with them is that we still don't have very suitable electrolytes with them. They... Before we have those, we cannot have those high voltage cut outs. Okay. But Polyan... Yes, but Polyan... Battery... Battery technology is like Rubik's cube. So, you need to put a lot of components together and it really needs to... And battery is like a small electrochemical factory in the very small space. So, it's constantly moving everything. So, one material needs to match and be balanced with other material. Or one component needs to be balanced with other components. That's good. Very true, Madison. Thanks so much, Ankur. I mean, definitely interesting topic. But just in interest of time, and I kind of have warned everyone you did.

1:30:11Yeah. It's probably in the end, it's going to get very busy and it tends to be. And we are almost already over time, over one of ours. And time tends to fly every time I'm like wondering, you know, will we have enough to discuss? But yeah, it always tends to be more to come. And of course, we have many more sessions coming up as well. So, first of all, massive thanks to Martin and Dr. Martin Boise for his great contribution for today. All the interesting insights to get us kicked off and of course, answering all these interesting questions. And yeah, he's very new to this platform. You can see it's on his party hat right there. And he's new here. I'm not sure if you're going to stick around, but if you want to give him a follow, you will be notified for future sessions. Otherwise, I'm sure you can also follow him on LinkedIn. If you look for Martin Boise there, you can follow him there and see the exciting work he's doing and all those different platforms you have been mentioning.

1:30:59And same as for Bavia Yaa, you can also follow her there. I'm sure on LinkedIn and these kind of platforms. The same for me, Simon Engelke. You're free to reach out there. I'm very happy to stay in touch. And of course, the same is true for everyone on this platform. You can see either follow them on Clubhouse or look up their social credentials and follow them on these other platforms. And if you want to follow us, because we actually have some even like some more we have now monthly, I said not once a week, but we have some more amazing fellow conversations that are coming for the coming months. We're going to talk about new kind of self formats or new cell chemistry, some things and interesting tech. So they're really excited to announce that speaker. And we have also other speakers more from the raw material side. So yeah, so we have some great names already lined up. And if you want to be notified and about them and get like an email, etc, just fill in your email on this website batteryinsiders.com, which is pinned up right now on the top of your screen.

1:32:02If you're in the room, if you're listening on Spotify, etc, you can also just go on batteryinsiders.com and I notify you and we notify you in due time. And yeah, hopefully, you know, really excited to stay in touch for free to reach out as well. If you have any other topics you want to discuss, you think it will be interesting. Let's find a speaker or you want to be a speaker yourself, you know, like the correlation style for one of the future sessions. But with this, Bavia, do you have any last words? No, that's it. Thank you all for joining us today. And we look forward to hosting you next time.