Niobium Batteries, a Brazilian invention that promises to be the solution for battery technologies What's up Engineering Lovers, my name is Igor Felipe and today we are going to talk about a recent development in battery technologies, which is the use of Niobium in their manufacture. But, after all, what is niobium? Niobium is a chemical element, identified by the symbol Nb.
It is found in group 5 of the periodic table and has atomic number 41 and atomic mass of 92. 9. The metal was discovered in 1801 by the English chemist Charles Hatchett from studies of the mineral columbite.
At the time he named the new element found in columbium (Cb) Later in 1846, independently of the German chemist Heinrich Rose discovered the element and named it as niobium, name adopted by the international community from 1950. But it was only in the middle of twentieth century that the element began to gain more evidence. That's because niobium has the ability to transform the properties of other materials.
This makes niobium have numerous uses, for example in cars, aircraft turbines, MRI devices, pacemaker instruments, rockets, electronic components and now also in batteries. Today, the metal is used mainly in special alloys, mixed with other metals, such as steel, titanium or copper, and this mixture of these metals ends up increasing the mechanical resistance of the final product. A great example is the use of niobium in gas pipeline tubes, which when mixing steel with niobium, even in a small percentage, ends up increasing the mechanical resistance of these tubes a lot.
However, since the use of the metal is very specific, the demand for its use is also restricted. Thus, Niobium is at the same time strategic from a technological point of view, but even so, undervalued. So it is necessary to create more uses for this metal with such interesting properties.
And that's where the Brazilian Niobium battery comes in. If it is as powerful as it promises, it could prove to be an excellent use and revolutionize the energy storage market. And just for you to have an idea, if the niobium battery hits, this will be excellent news for us Brazilians, since niobium practically only exists here in Brazil, where we have almost 98% of the world's reserves.
But if this niobium is so good, why don't we get rich from its extraction? This is because niobium is a replaceable metal. This means that, despite having good properties, it can be replaced by metals that have similar characteristics.
Another detail that harms the sale of niobium is the fact that we sell niobium as a raw material, that is, raw niobium, and not a product that uses niobium in its composition. Now, with this idea of building a battery made of niobium, we ended up adding value to a product, that is, we do not export the raw material, but a technology produced here. Thus, when we use the metal in other technologies such as batteries, we also add value to your niobium extraction and production chain.
But what are the advantages of niobium? The main advantages of niobium are its high thermal and electrical conductivity, ductility, which is the material's ability to undergo deformation without losing its physical characteristics, malleability and high resistance to heat, wear and corrosion. These characteristics end up giving the metal the ability to improve physical properties , making metals that bind to niobium more efficient.
And it's because of these characteristics that niobium has many ways to apply. For example, niobium is essential for technological innovations focused on developing smarter and stronger materials, making them lighter, increasing performance, efficiency and safety. This makes the mobility sector benefit from this, being able to create, for example, orthopedic prostheses for people, with more technology.
And not only that, as niobium helps solve engineering challenges, enabling savings and material efficiency. Projects with more modern structures can have more design freedom with greater strength in a more sustainable way. This is because with the use of niobium, we are able to increase the resistance characteristics of materials, and this opens up possibilities for improving calculations and optimizing structures.
Niobium is a wealth of Brazil, with great need for better valorization and use, and the investment of two large companies in this battery technology sets an important precedent for the future of the country's economy. But then, who actually developed this niobium battery? This achievement should be credited to Volkswagen Trucks and Buses (VWCO) in partnership with CBMM (Companhia Brasileira de Metalurgia e Mineração), which signed an agreement to develop and manufacture niobium-based batteries for electric vehicles.
According to the team from the two companies, one of the advantages of Brazilian technology is the charging of electric cars in a record time of up to six minutes. Charging an electric car battery at the same time as fueling a combustion car is truly an unprecedented feat. The project should elevate Brazil's position in the automotive segment from the union between the vehicle manufacturer and CBMM.
And if you don't know, CBMM is responsible for extracting niobium and also developing new technologies using this material. This project is the result of nearly four years of research in Japan and also with various Toshiba technologies. For you to understand better, niobium is applied in batteries replacing graphite.
This makes them half the size of conventional batteries. But it is important to emphasize that its energy density is lower than that of conventional electric vehicle batteries , therefore, the vehicle's autonomy will also be lower. Therefore, a specific charging infrastructure for this technology would need to be implemented, as fast charging is one of the great advantages of niobium batteries.
In other words, you may have a shorter battery life, but fast charging would eliminate this problem. And if you think they're going to be like these disposable batteries we see today, studies show that niobium battery packs can have a useful life of almost 20 years, and over 10,000 cycles. By comparison, these batteries would have up to five times more cycles than typical lithium-ion batteries.
And not only battery life, but we also have security benefits. As they do not degrade at extreme temperatures like other batteries, they lower the risk of fire. Now imagine yourself riding in an electric car with a Brazilian niobium battery, and knowing that you can fully charge it in just 6 minutes, what do you think?
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