10 March 2025 – As the world shifts towards sustainable transportation, innovative battery technologies are becoming increasingly critical. Echion Technologies Ltd, a spin-out from the University of Cambridge, has developed a mixed niobium oxide (XNO®) anode material, for use in next-generation lithium-ion batteries. With rapid and continuing growth of electric vehicle markets taking place in recent years, the enhancements in battery longevity, safety and performance (power density and charging speed) offered by XNO® make it a promising material for the improvement of such technologies and products.
Nonetheless, extraction and refinement of niobium oxide, the primary component of XNO®, is an energy- and cost-intensive process. Furthermore, like many critical materials, niobium oxide must be sourced from overseas deposits since significant domestic resources do not exist. To address this vulnerability, Echion Tech is pioneering research into recycling methods that would create a circular economy for niobium oxide.
Conversion into pure niobium oxide
This collaborative project between Echion and iCAST (Innovation Centre for Applied Sustainable Technologies) has aimed to identify specific chemical methods for converting XNO® recovered from battery wastes into pure niobium oxide. Several viable routes were identified and demonstrated, enabling the efficient transformation of XNO® into niobium salts using widely available and inexpensive chemical reagents. Initial studies also suggested that these salts could be further converted into pristine niobium oxide through simple chemical treatments.
Through the course of this project, iCAST and Echion Technologies have developed a key enabling technology for the establishment of a circular niobium oxide economy, essential for the sustainable adoption of next-generation niobium-based lithium-ion battery technologies.
Collaboration is key
This Joint Industry Project was co-led and delivered at the University of Bath by Dr Strachan McCormick of iCAST and Dr Geirge Harrington, a member of Bath Institute of Sustainability and Climate Change.
Dr McCormick said, “Through the course of this project, iCAST and Echion Technologies have developed a key enabling technology for the establishment of the circular niobium oxide economy, essential for the sustainable adoption of next-generation niobium lithium-ion battery technologies.”
Andrew Pauza, Echion’s Head of Scale-up and Production, commented, “Our collaboration with iCAST is an important part of Echion’s XNO® anode material development. Sustainability is a cornerstone of our offering to customers, which creates the need for an efficient and affordable process to recycle XNO® into its constituents and build the circular economy that will help us to achieve our goals.
“The team at iCAST bring a deep level of knowledge and a great enthusiasm to this work, and have helped us obtain some excellent insights which we will continue to develop.”
