ICL Group Ltd. (Tel Aviv, Israel) said today it has broken ground on a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) plant in St. Louis. The plant will be operational in 2025 and produce 30,000 metric tons per year of LFP. It will “serve as the foundation for the company’s global battery materials business,” ICL said.
The company is investing $400 million to build the plant, augmented by a $197 million grant from the US Department of Energy.
The facility is “the first North American, commercial-scale plant for this critical component required by the energy-storage, mobility and infrastructure end-markets,” said Phil Brown, president, phosphate division at ICL. “We’re excited about the demand we are already seeing for this capacity and are looking forward to moving into this new business.”
LFP batteries are “one of the fastest-growing sectors of the battery industry,” ICL added. The technology has become predominant in China, where it accounted for 64.1% of total battery output in the first four months of this year, according to data from the China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance.
By Vincent Valk, additional reporting by Avery Chen, Taylor Kuykendall and Gaurang Dholakia, S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Source: chemweek.com
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