Tesla's CEO Elon Musk once said of lithium-ion batteries: "Our batteries should be called nickel-graphite, because its mostly nickel and graphite." Graphite is indeed often underestimated as a battery material, but it plays a significant role. The German Raw Materials Agency even sees it as a "key raw material for the transport revolution". In the coming years, demand is expected to rise sharply for use in lithium-ion batteries for e-cars. The raw material is used as anode material. Synthetic graphite and natural graphite are used for this purpose. However, the increasing demand and the concentration of mining and processing in one country have the potential for supply bottlenecks.
Further information on graphite from the German Raw Materials Agency: www.bgr.bund.de/DERA/DE/Aktuelles/rohstoff_graphit.html
