Supply and demand of lithium in China based on dynamic material flow analysis

Lithium demand in China has grown rapidly with the popularization of computer, communication and consumer electronic (3C) products, electric vehicles (EVs), and other products. As an important part of the global processing of lithium products, China still relies on importing a vast majority of raw lithium materials, which significantly affects the supply fulfillment of China's lithium market. Therefore, this study used MFA to analyze the supply and demand characteristics of China's lithium trading market from the trade material flow between 2000 and 2021 and industrial material flow between 2017 and 2021 by quantizing trade and industry data. The results showed that the import of lithium in China is mainly concentrated on lithium carbonate, which is the raw material for power batteries, and the import of lithium accounts for 72.5 % of the consumption in China, about 75.2 % of carbonate lithium is used for batteries. Given the expanding EV market, the demand for lithium in China increases rapidly. In addition to a stable supply of lithium imports, secondary lithium recovered from EoL batteries is expected to become an important lithium supply source.