Advanced materials at the heart of tomorrow's battery solutions

On Tuesday 26 January the European Commission approved a total of 2.9 billion euros in state aid granted by 12 member states, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, to carry out major research projects in latest-generation batteries.

Europe indeed intends to take its rightful place in the electric battery market with the help of manufacturers involved in the entire value chain, and this is an excellent thing.

Chemistry and advanced materials are and will continue to be at the heart of the solutions that will enable Europe to deploy this vast research endeavor commonly referred to as the “second Airbus of batteries”.

This is the second part of the European “batteries” project, following the program launched at the end of 2019 by seven member states and under the aegis of Paris, which has benefited from 3.2 billion euros in state aid and aims to launch the first European “giga factories” within two years.

This green light from the Commission places Arkema, with its advanced materials, even more at the forefront of the technological and industrial battery revolution. We are pleased to be able to contribute to the high industrial ambition of Europe in the service of the energy and climate transition, alongside prestigious and recognized partners like BMW, Northvolt Stellantis, Tesla, etc., around distinct but complementary projects, all of which are part of one or more of the four stages of the battery value chain: raw materials and advanced materials, cells, batteries and management system, end of life.

For the electric vehicle market to really take off, it was necessary for the players to mobilize and for Europe to play a full role in supporting innovation in industrialization, in order to meet the challenges of the performance and competitiveness of tomorrow's batteries: longer service life, improved safety, greater power, faster charging, and greater range.

The necessary progress across all these areas manifestly requires the development of new electrolyte salts.

Arkema already has a major global presence in the battery market with its materials and fluoropolymers. For Arkema, which draws on its expertise in fluorochemicals, this latest step will help speed up the development and industrialization, by 2024, of new electrolyte salts that can be used not only for current generations of batteries (liquid Li-Ion) but also for future generations (solid Li-Ion- Li-Sulfur).