Highlights
- A comprehensive review identifies 28 critical raw materials essential for battery and supercapacitor technologies.
- Global energy transition risks severe geopolitical and supply chain instability due to material scarcity.
- Urgent need for material substitution, recycling innovations, and circular economy strategies to support decarbonization goals
A comprehensive new review, authored by Maham Mahnoor, Rabia Chandio, Anum Inam, and Dr. Inam Ul Ahad from Dublin City University’s I-Form Centre and Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, provides a comprehensive analysis of the critical and strategic raw materials essential for energy storage technologies. Published in Batteries (April 2025), the study (Critical and Strategic Raw Materials for Energy Storage Devices, DOI: 10.3390/batteries11040163 (opens in a new tab)) identifies 28 critical raw materials—including lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earth elements, and graphite—as foundational to the performance, scalability, and sustainability of batteries and supercapacitors.
The authors hypothesize that the global energy transition toward renewables will accelerate demand for energy storage materials at a pace that risks severe geopolitical, environmental, and supply chain instability. Their findings warn that resource scarcity, over-reliance on a small number of supplier countries (notably China and the Democratic Republic of Congo), and the environmental impacts of extraction pose major threats to decarbonization goals. The study further emphasizes the urgent need for material substitution strategies, recycling innovations, and the integration of a circular economy to prevent derailing the green transition.
While the review is thorough and valuable in mapping out material dependencies, it makes several assumptions that merit scrutiny. For example, it largely accepts the European Union’s critical raw material classifications without deeply questioning their geopolitical framing. It also assumes that substitution and recycling can meaningfully offset supply chain risks, without fully addressing the slow and uncertain pace of commercial breakthroughs in these areas. Additionally, while the authors call for innovation in alternative chemistries, such as sodium-ion and lithium-sulfur batteries, they understate the formidable technical hurdles these systems still face compared to incumbent lithium-ion technologies.
Final Thoughts
This important study underscores a critical tension: the green energy future will be built with minerals that remain economically and environmentally costly to extract. Without a sharper focus on upstream supply diversification, recycling standards, and pragmatic geopolitical strategy, the vulnerabilities outlined by Mahnoor et al. could grow more acute, not less.
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