Looking at Opportunities for Supply of Electric Vehicles Raw Materials in Indonesia

January 09, 2020 - ( update : 28-01-2020 )

By Adi Permana

Editor Adi Permana

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – The electric vehicle industry is predicted to grow rapidly in the years to come. Indonesia can play strategic role in the future because it has primary raw materials for battery of electric vehicles, especially nickel, cobalt, aluminum, copper, and manganese, as well as big domestic market of electric vehicles.

That was said by Prof. Dr.mont. M. Zaki Mubarok, S.T., M.T., in a scientific speech delivered in Ceremony for Freshmen Admission (PPMB) in Doctoral, Master’s, and Professional Programs, Second Semester of Academic Year 2019/2020 on Thursday (1/9/2020) at Sabuga Convention Hall, Bandung. Prof. Zaki raised a topic “Domestic Provision of Raw Materials for Electric Vehicle Batteries through Processing and refining of Laterite Nickel Ore”.

According to Mineral Commodity Summaries 2019 data from United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 2019, Indonesia has the largest nickel reserves in the world at 21 million tons of nickel equivalent in 2018 and level of mining production at 560,000 tons nickel equivalent in the same year.

“Nickel reserves in Indonesia are in the form of laterite nickel ore deposits which is the product of laterization or weathering of ultramafic rocks (rocks containing magnesium and iron),” he said.

Electric Cars

Prof. Zaki added that battery is the key component of electric vehicles and contributes to 35-40% of the current price of electric cars. The biggest cost component for production of an electric car battery is the materials which contribute to about 60% of the total battery production cost.

“Electric cars use lithium ion batteries, which consist of nickel, cobalt, manganese, and aluminum as raw materials for cathode and graphite as materials for anode. Cathode materials contribute the highest to the cost of lithium battery cells which is around 34%,” he explained. He estimates that electric car sales in the world will keep on growing up to 55%, and in 2040 it is estimated that around 48% are battery-based electric cars.

In Indonesia, Presidential Regulation No. 55 of 2019 is signed pertaining program acceleration of battery-based electric vehicle for road transportation. According to Prof. Zaki, Indonesia can have strategic role in electric vehicle industry because Indonesia has the materials and domestic market for electric cars and bikes.

“Most of the materials needed for production of electric car batteries are available domestically, except for lithium which needs improvement in the exploration process,” said the professor in Extraction Metallurgy Research Group.

Related Researches in ITB

Research activities on the process metal extraction and refining are conducted at Metallurgical Engineering Research Group of FTTM-ITB. In the past 10 years, many researches have been conducted in Hydro-electrometallurgy Laboratory from the upstream stage to synthesis of products.

In 2020, as explained by Prof. Zaki, Hydro-electrometallurgy Laboratory under Metallurgical Engineering Research Group will conduct a research to synthesize nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate from local laterite nickel ore which will be used to prepare NMC battery cell cathodes.

“Opportunities for research and development of material synthesis for supply of electric vehicle batteries remain open both in the area of mineral processing and refining, metal recycling, up to the preparation of battery precursors and performance test to battery cells produced”.