The Dynamic Evolution of the Material Flow of Lithium Resources in China

As a strategic emerging mineral resource, lithium is widely used in new energy, new materials and other emerging industries. There exists a changing trend of the material flow, consumption and evolution of lithium resources in the market. Thus, this research constructed a material flow analysis system for lithium resources based on the trade correlation of the whole life cycle. The study used the material flow analysis method to analyze the supply, flow and stock of lithium resources in China from 2007 to 2020. The research shows that during that timeframe, China’s cumulative consumption of lithium resources equivalent to lithium carbonate reached 309.9348 kiloton (kt). The consumption of lithium in traditional and lithium electric fields increased from 14.3653 kt and 8.08228 kt in 2007 to 49.53125 kt and 90.75866 kt in 2020, respectively. From 2007 to 2011, the consumption of lithium in the traditional sector was greater than that in the lithium electric sector. From 2012 to 2020, with the innovation of network technology and the boom in the New energy vehicles (NEV) market, the market for consumer lithium and power lithium grew rapidly, and the field of lithium with power batteries as the main driving force gradually became the major contributor to the consumption of lithium resources. With the rapid increase in the consumption demand for lithium resources, the supply structure of lithium resources in China has changed from domestic supply to international import. The external dependence of lithium resources has increased from 29.74% in 2007 to 70.75% in 2020. With increasing lithium consumption, the storage of lithium batteries increased from 20.69721 kt in 2007 to 341.6322 kt in 2020. At the same time, the scrap volume of lithium batteries increased rapidly, but the recycling volume of lithium resources was far lower than the scrap volume. The resource recycling potential is huge, and there is still a lot of room for the development of the sequential utilization of waste lithium-ion batteries.