Sub-system
Refined metal is not cathode material. It has to be co-precipitated into a precursor powder with the right composition and particle structure, then reacted with a lithium compound at high temperature — a distinct chemical industry sitting between the miners and the cell makers.
In one sentence
Cathode active material is the engineered powder coated onto a cell's positive electrode; precursor material is the intermediate hydroxide or phosphate powder, produced by controlled co-precipitation, that is then lithiated to make it.
For nickel-based chemistries the precursor step dissolves nickel, manganese and cobalt sulphates and precipitates them together as a mixed hydroxide, under conditions that control particle size, shape and internal porosity. Those physical properties matter as much as the composition: they determine how the material packs, how fast lithium moves in and out, and how the particles survive repeated expansion.
The precursor is then mixed with a lithium compound and calcined, producing the finished active material. Iron-phosphate chemistry follows a different and cheaper route with its own producers. Both steps are concentrated in Asia, and both are qualified into specific cells.
Split by the two chemical steps, because precipitating the particle and lithiating it are done in different plants by different companies.
Two materials with identical elemental composition can perform very differently depending on particle size distribution, whether the particles are dense single crystals or porous agglomerates, and what coating is applied to the surface. Single-crystal materials crack less over cycles; agglomerates offer more surface area. That choice is made per cell design.
Cathode material is the largest single materials cost in a nickel-based cell, and it is where lithium, nickel and cobalt prices enter the cell's bill of materials. Contract structures usually pass metal prices through, which is why cathode producers' margins move differently from the metals they consume.
2 of these are marked as a chokepoint: a handful of qualified suppliers, a multi-year lead time, or a single geography.
The precursor step consumes battery-grade sulphates and the lithiation step consumes carbonate or hydroxide.
Nickel and cobaltCarbonate or hydroxide depending on the chemistry, and the two are not interchangeable.
LithiumRecovered sulphates feed the same precipitation step as mined material, which is why several cathode producers now run recycling operations beside the plant.
RecyclingOther pages in this map that name Cathode materials as something they cannot do without.
Every company named on a step below this page, ordered by how many of those steps it appears at. Compiled from the pages themselves rather than written separately, so the two cannot disagree. Not a ranking and not a recommendation.
1 more company appears at a single step each; they are named on the pages for those steps.
Each page explains one technology in plain language, states what it depends on, and names companies by what they supply at that step. Company roles are described qualitatively and deliberately carry no market shares, revenue figures or rankings — those change faster than an explainer can, and a stale number is worse than none. Ticker links point at company pages on this site and are provided for reference only.
Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or a forecast. A company named on a page about a technology is not thereby a good investment, and the chokepoints described are structural facts about supply chains rather than predictions about prices. Technology moves; where a page describes something as unresolved or in development, that was true when it was written.
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