Mitsui Mining To Boost Battery Material Output For Electric Vehicles

The firm will spend 7 billion yen to construct a building and set up production equipment at its smelter in the city of Takehara, Hiroshima Prefecture.

Mitsui Mining plans to raise the smelter’s annual output of a manganese series positive-electrode material for in-car batteries to 12,000 tons, starting in fiscal 2012.

Up to now, the smelter has produced a positive-electrode material for cell phones, with an annual capacity of around 960 tons. The firm decided to mass-produce the material for lithium-ion batteries as it expects demand for electric cars will grow.

e.nikkei.com