The battery industry is willing and interested to engage in the development of innovation timelines that enable substitution of PFAS in batteries without compromising performance or durability / longevity goals, such as the European Commission’s pilot substitution planning project. The substitution planning approach should address the difference in cycle life testing requirements, design validation and approval requirements between the automotive, power tools and consumer electronics sectors.
One of the main challenges is the complex cathode chemistry. The cathodes in today’s high performance lithium-ion batteries use about 2% polyvinylidine difluoride (PVDF) as the binder material. PVDF is the only industry proven material which has all the properties needed to meet all the functional requirements for the cathode binder material in all applications.
Recent innovations have enabled some companies to adopt non-PFAS polymers as the cathode binder in some battery applications. However, using this cathode binder in high performance batteries in automotive, power tool and consumer electronics applications would result in severe performance regressions.
New innovations are needed to identify and develop new cathode binder materials that meet environmental goals and minimise performance regressions in high performance applications. This requires a holistic approach and sufficient time to investigate and qualify the impact of technical options across all stages of the battery cell life cycle.
The information exchange participants will continue the discussions, extending the focus to substances beyond only PFAS in view of the upcoming identification of priority substances under the Batteries Regulation. The battery industry would welcome the continued participation of the European Commission, European Chemicals Agency and Member States in these information exchanges to continue to share knowledge and build increased understanding.
